Total Idiocy! Oh, and A Dance, Too
by Tozette
Summary: The jounin get together and decide that their students should do something fun and socially oriented because adolescents shouldn't be totally focused on avenging their families and proving their worth so very loudly. Thus, a dance. Shounen, shoujo ai.
1. Collaborating, Conniving Teachers

Disclaimer: The manga/anime series, "Naruto" and any and all characters or place names pertaining thereto are the sole property of the creator and associated persons. The author of this story does not claim or aspire to own any of these. Any thoughts or opinions expressed by the characters in this piece of fanwork do not necessarily reflect those of the author or of the creator of the original series.

It has been suggested to me (and so very politely, too) that I should indicate that this fic involves yaoi (shounen ai, actually, but I'll forgive the people that review on the second chapter, where there are no pairings at all, for being vague about things they find grotesque) for the sake of the readers who wish to flame me over it. Be my guest.

Thank you.

"A dance?" Asuma repeated.

"Iruka-san, I agree that some our students are rather lacking in social skills, but there is no way to ensure that they will actually attend." Kurenai pointed out.

The small restaurant they'd chosen to meet at was almost empty, something that the jounin had recently discovered was motivated by the complete lack of anything edible on the menu. The tea, however, was quite lovely. Iruka, the only chuunin among them, frowned.

"There must be some way to make them –"

"Yo... I would have been on time, but there was this puppy in the middle of the road-"

All eyes turned towards the familiar mask of Kakashi, whose right-eye's incredible acting talent allowed them to discern that he was smiling cutely.

"Aha! My eternal rival, Kakashi! You have beaten me yet again with your skill at being fashionably late!"

"... please don't encourage it, Gai-san." Iruka murmured wearily.

"I shall do one hundred – no, _two_ hundred laps around the village without using my hands as penance for this loss!"

"Because this will help you attain social grace." Kurenai murmured.

"Yosh!" Gai pumped his fist, fire in his eyes.

Kakashi looked up from the menu with, "Did you say something?"

Cursing Kakashi's general hip-ness, Gai fell into something like silence.

"Anyway," Iruka attempted to call the quasi-meeting to order, "What can we do to ensure that they might turn up to a dance?"

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Certainly, the latest group of rookies to fail the chuunin exam were a little lacking in communicative ability – notably, Sasuke, Shino, Neji and Hinata (what was wrong with those Hyuuga kids?) with Naruto and Lee as a side, but he wasn't sure that a dance would actually fix that.

However, he was all for torturing his students. "Saa... make it a mission. Failure to attend is failure to complete the mission." He suggested.

The others, who were apparently happy to torture their own students, nodded contemplatively. The exception was Gai.

"Your good idea threatens to bring shame to me, my rival! However! There is a flaw in your plan and that flaw is this: Though your suggestion is ingenious and inspired, it cannot ensure that the misguided youths will actively participate in this event! Thus, I put forth a suggestion of my own – to alter the mission to include the clause, "show your appreciation of this marvellous opportunity by informing all present through your actions and expressions of your enjoyment of this evening"!" He finished, waiting to be praised.

"Um, that's a very good suggestion, Gai-san," Iruka said hesitantly in the silence that followed. Asuma put his cigarette out on the rough wooden table before tossing the butt into the ashtray. Kurenai gave him a dirty look.

"When were you planning to hold this... event, Iruka?" Asuma asked, lighting up another.

"Ideally in about a week. I'd like to have time outside classes to decorate the hall and suchlike." With an eye to hoarding large quantities of food if an Akimichi was attending.

Gai's eyes were gleaming peculiarly. "Perhaps I could offer the eager assistance of my cell for the preparations?"

Iruka swallowed. "Uh, sure, if you don't think it would be a... problem." He certainly thought it was a problem. Rock Lee was almost as ridiculously overzealous as his idol and the Hyuuga boy gave him the creeps...

With Gai-sensei's vehement agreement, a few pitying looks and a sick feeling in his gut, Iruka nodded and the rest of the teachers trailed out one by one, either because they had something better to do or because they became bored with the conversation.

"Is the food here as bad as they say?" Kakashi enquired. He was the last person left and Iruka, polite as he was, felt bad simply leaving him there when he'd been the one to invite everybody out to the restaurant.

"Yes, Kakashi-san, it is truly terrible." He assured him. "Err... what are you doing?"

"Ordering," Kakashi replied, smiling under the mask. The plain-faced, busty waitress grinned at them as she scribbled on the notepad she carried in her little white apron.

"... I see." Iruka said, clearly indicating that he didn't see at all.

... chapter two will be up at a later date...

So, now... pairings? What should happen? How should it be done?

Tell me...


	2. Extrapolating on Torture

Kakashi found it easy to be only an hour and a half late that day. In all honesty, his excitement may have enabled him to be totally punctual on this occasion, but... this simply could not be.

So he bummed around for the extra hour or so before making his way towards the bridge.

"Yo," He waved, appearing like magic (although it was actually just a judicious use of concentrated chakra to his feet) on top of the arch.

Naruto, who looked more than half asleep over the railing and Sakura, who was apparently on _yet another_ diet – someone needed to have a talk to that girl about that. _Someone not him_ – both jerked up and pointed at him, screaming about his tardiness. Sasuke gave him a cursory, less-than-interested glance and returned to his moody brooding.

"YOU'RE LATE!"

Kakashi really couldn't see why being introverted and totally socially inept was a problem. It was only the extroverts who caused _him_ problems.

But he digressed.

"Well, there was this little boy stuck in a tree..."

"LIAR!"

"Well," Kakashi murmured, quite aware that they were all hanging on his every word for some indication that there was something they would be paid for hanging in limbo behind his tongue, "it seems that you have a mission."

"YAY! Is it a hard one, Kakashi-sensei? What do we have to do? Kill wild animals? Escort a feudal lord across a country?" Naruto asked enthusiastically. Sakura was looking at him hopefully, although he knew that she was hoping for a mission that would be relatively simple but a bit of fun. Even Sasuke was stirred from his introspection and his sharp eyes had come to rest on Kakashi-sensei's right eye.

"Your mission is..."

"What? What? What?" Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet. Sakura leaned in closer. Sasuke, aware of the device, did his best to look disinterested and failed.

"To attend a dance arranged by Umino Iruka!" He smiled his cute little smile. Or maybe he just closed his eyes. Who knows?

"Eh!" Naruto yelled. "Wha-at?"

"The dance will be held in exactly five days, but we were instructed to tell you earlier so that you could prepare."

"Prepare?" Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"It is a formal dance, Sasuke-kun." Kakashi grinned widely. Sasuke went slightly grey. Sakura felt immediately compelled to ask him if he was feeling alright and thus prove that she was highly observant and interested in his wellbeing, life, eating habits and underwear.

Kakashi fought not to roll his eyes (since he had trouble rolling one without the other, which struck him as a little bit odd, since he could do everything else with one eye). Naruto sulked and wondered out loud what made Sasuke-bastard so great, at which point Sakura felt compelled to hit him for his ignorance and thus prove that she, Haruno Sakura, knew that, if not why, Sasuke was 'so great' and supported the theory wholeheartedly.

"To clarify the concept of '_formal_'... as in, _more_ formal than usual. While actual formal clothing, suits or hakama for the men and dresses or kimono for the women is encouraged... it's unnecessary." He was pretty sure that only the Hyuuga clan would even consider forcing their child into a kimono, but it didn't hurt to be sure...

"Any questions?"

"Why do we have to go to a dance? Dances are only for girls!" Naruto sulked. Sakura hit him, hard, thus proving that she disagreed and that Sasuke would still be considered utterly masculine should he choose not to complain about it and/or dance with her and only her and fall deeply in love with her forest green eyes and never think about another girl again...

Let's switch stations, shall we?

"Ano, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura rubbed her fist, "are our teachers also going to attend?"

Kakashi fought a sigh. She was too smart for her own good sometimes. "Tsunade-sama seems to believe that that would be the best idea, yes. It's mostly for supervision purposes, and a few special jounin are also attending."

Sakura was beginning to look a bit scary with that smile. "So... Kakashi-sensei is going to be wearing a suit?" Naruto sat up and started laughing loudly.

"Are there any, slightly more pertinent questions? No? Good." Kakashi made a few hand-seals, but paused half way through. "Oh, yes. There's another clause. Everyone has to at _least_ make pretence at enjoying the dance and I want _all of you,_" he eyed Sasuke, "to dance with at least one person." He smiled again and disappeared with the audible _click_ of Sasuke's teeth in his ears.

That went rather well, didn't it? He especially thought the last part was brilliant. He was such a genius.


	3. Here, have a mop

See first chapter for disclaimer.

I happen to be in a very boring and slow-moving class at the moment and have thus finished the third chapter. Since I've gotten two reviews per chapter (yes. One of them was me. Leave me alone to my lonely little pursuits) I will continue to update once per every two reviews. With this as my guiding principle, if I end up with five chapters I'll have ten reviews. Since that's about the extent of my mathematic prowess, I shall stop trying to count by twos.

Although I will add that, since I have 46 reviews for Chemical Equation, I can assume that I got, on average, 15 reviews per every 1000 hits. Pitiful, people. _Pitiful_.

Also, I know I'm usually a NejiTenten shipper, but I'm actually a huge yaoi fangirl (read as _rabid_) and most of my original stuff is SLASH, so I'm leaning towards NejiSasu, SakuLee, NaruKiba, KureHina and, because my hat said so, TentenIno. Maybe GaiKaka... they definitely have _something_ odd there.

Guys, talk to me – what do you think?

I DO thank "Female Ninja" for the SakuLee idea, since I probably wouldn't have decided to try it if it hadn't been suggested.

Thank you.

_**Total Idiocy – chapter 3**_

Iruka smiled at the girl – Tenten, yes? He remembered her from her Academy days. Fantastic with weaponry, good at offensive ninjutsu, but her defence had always needed work. He was sure he'd made the right decision when he put her in Gai's cell, but he was a little bit depressed to see that she was still oddly fascinated with the Hyuuga prodigy. He remembered him as being far more jaded and cynical than the other children and had hoped that some of Gai's optimism might have rubbed off, but it looked as though Neji had simply refused to admit that he and his teacher lived in the same world. The other one seemed to have allowed a little _too_ much of Gai's personality to rub off.

"Ahh, okay, since Gai-sensei appears to have some pressing matters to attend to," Neji snorted at that. Lee jumped up with one fist in the air, ready to defend Gai-sensei's honour! Iruka saw a fight about to break out between the two boys and immediately continued pointedly, "I will instruct you for the moment. The hall, as you can see, has been repaired since your explosive chuunin examination," he waved a hand, "but it still needs to be cleaned thoroughly."

Tenten made a slight face, but immediately looked around the room to assess the amount of work necessary. Seeing that, although floors would have to be mopped and scrubbed and walls were filthy from chakra-smoke, there wasn't any real _stuff_ to clean, she brightened.

"Obviously, we need to make sure that the floors," he slid his sandal across the floor and all four could hear the dirt and dust move beneath it, "are suitable for dancing on. Lee-kun, would you be able to do that?"

"Of course! I shall not allow any genin – particularly my darling Sakura-san – to place their feet upon a sub-standard dance floor! If, by the time I have cleaned to the best of my ability, I cannot see my own reflection on this floor, I shall do ten-thousand push-ups!" He declared with one fist in the air and a slightly overzealous fire in his eyes. Tenten sighed and slid her face into her palm. Neji ignored it.

"You, Neji, and you, Tenten, might clean off the walls. I assume that you can mould your chakra to hold yourselves there?"

Tenten nodded. Neji gave him a disgusted look.

The cleaning utensils awaited them.

Tenten was becoming tired before they finished. Truthfully, she was becoming tired before they were halfway through cleaning the walls. If Neji, on the opposite side of the hall and having cleaned more space faster than she, was at all tired, he didn't show it. Lee was still rocketing around with his mop, using what she assumed was the demonic energy and strength of the insane to fuel him.

Well, regardless of her team mates' better stamina, her first wall was almost clean, and, clean, it didn't look half bad. Certainly, she hadn't realised that the walls were _white_ or that it wasn't _rust_ on the metal railing Iruka-sensei was cleaning off, but actually just hardened filth. The bars were... shiny. And metallic. And the floor wasn't exactly a nice colour, but it was... also shiny, as far as Lee had cleaned.

It was sort of scary, and the realisation that she'd touched the walls and railings prior to their cleaning made her want to go and scrub herself thoroughly.

With one wall clean, she moved onto the next, since Neji had chosen to begin cleaning the wall without the large hands portraying a common seal. That was fine by her, since it meant that he had more area of wall to clean.

It took longer than it should have, again. She suspected that having to concentrate on not falling off the wall was having a negative effect on her efficiency. Either way, Neji was making a start on the hands when she finished and, dropping gratefully to the floor (away from where Lee was cleaning. She didn't want to get knocked flat on her backside), she joined him.

"That was harder work than it looked." She commented amiably when he grunted in acknowledgement of her existence. He made a similar, slightly more neutral noise.

There! That was almost a conversation! His improvement astounded her – warmed the cockles of her heart, it really did. She felt that a request that he make some intelligible – perhaps even verbal? – response might be in order one day, but that that day was not this day and that she'd be better off if she didn't press her luck, regardless of how hot he was or how much she wanted him to speak more than twenty words to her in a day.

After cleaning – and although there hadn't been much to clean past the walls and floors, there was a lot of space – came furniture. Furniture was not really that much of a problem. Trestle tables for food, which they, personally, would have to prepare at a later date and oh, how she wanted to kill Gai-sensei, were the main item, and carrying them in wasn't a problem. Neji and Lee were clearly stronger than her, but she was determined to pull her own weight.

Even so, in her team of overachievers, that could be an S-rank mission all on its own.

They also had to carry in quite a few (but not too many, since Iruka-sensei wanted people to actually dance, not just sit around) squishy, comfy chairs and small, circular and semi-circular tables for the mezzanine.

Iruka decided that decorating could be done the day before the event and that it was just fine that they'd done such a good job today. He patted them on the head and sent them home with their tails wagging. Except for Neji, of course, who was offended by the condescension inherent in that statement and demanded that he be treated with proper respect.

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Somewhere else in the village that very day, the best-known genin kunoichi of Konoha were having an emergency meeting. Since Tenten had never really socialized with the girls in the younger year at the Academy, or, truth be told, _any_ girls at the Academy, it felt very strange to be invited. But she'd been friendlier towards Ino and Sakura, and had even gone out of her way to be particularly nice to Hinata since the chuunin exam finals, so it wasn't a complete surprise.

What was a surprise was that these girls, or two of them, at least, classified, 'formal dress' as an emergency. Tenten wasn't certain, but she was pretty sure that all the males were going to bitch and moan until someone forced them into some form of acceptable attire and then shuffle along to the dance. She'd been prepared to do exactly the same thing. In fact, she'd briefly wondered if she could get away with wearing a suit, too. It was _way_ easier to hide weapons under male clothing.

Now that she was bathed and re-dressed, it appeared that she was about to be forced to do otherwise.

"I can't believe we only have three days now!" Sakura said incredulously. "How am I supposed to shop for accessories and shoes if I'm forced to find a _dress_ as well with only _three_ days? It's not possible."

Tenten objected to this statement, since she knew she could find a dress, a pair of acceptable shoes and a set of earrings in under an hour, but she wasn't nearly stupid enough to mention that.

"And there's so little off the rack that would suit your figure, Sakura-chan." Ino agreed. Tenten stifled a sigh. The two were never any fun when they were together. And were they ever together. Hinata and herself were trailing along the busy shopping strip behind them as they pretended that they loved each other and ever-so-sweetly made insinuations.

"Yes," Tenten agreed blandly in an attempt to make them agree for just a little while, "It's a bit of a pity that the industry has so little idea of what looks good on most girls." She commented. She actually had no idea if it were so or not, buying practical, simple clothes when the rest of hers were bloodstained, torn or too old or not at all, but she knew that they'd agree. It was in the psychology book she'd flipped through on Gai-sensei's (first and only) educational trip to the national library. If the industry wasn't normal, than everybody who didn't fit in its boundaries _was_. Everybody wanted to be normal.

She was so proud of herself for remembering that.

Ino and Sakura nodded vehemently and made noises of agreement. Hinata looked up at her with slightly surprised, shrewd eyes. "Ano... so, if you don't mind my asking, wh-what are we looking for?" Hinata asked.

Ino frowned. "Well, I think something blue might suit me. And definitely something winter-coloured for you, Hinata-chan. Maybe something that shows off a few of your curves," she commented in a pointed critique of Hinata's usual attire. Hinata nodded.

Tenten was skipped over in Ino's haste to say, "And, as for you, Sakura-chan, perhaps something that draws the attention away from your forehead."

She sighed. It was going to be one hell of a shopping trip. Perhaps she should have taken Lee, instead. He would have told her she looked fantastic in everything, but at least she'd have had company, somebody to carry the bag and the ability to oversee what Lee thought would be suitable attire for himself.

It took them a long time. A really, really long time. And that was just finding Ino's dress. The _first_ one. Tenten had never complained about her feet aching in her life, but she'd never been so _bored_ in her life, either.

W00t. Thanks for tuning in and switching on. I hope this is holding somebody's interest.

By the way, Snow the Unbrave is a fantastic reviewer. If this self-proclaimed Unbrave one doesn't mind, might I use that underwear line later in this fic?


	4. OMFG he SPEAKS!

See first chapter for disclaimer.

**Total Idiocy – Chapter four**

Sasuke was not looking forward to this mission. He failed to see how it taught the practical use of any relevant skills. Furthermore, he failed to see the point in pretending to enjoy himself, since that would only encourage them.

You know. _Them_.

Sasuke also found the idea of forcing himself into a suit to be singularly mortifying. It would encourage them _further_, and that was a scary thought. Aware that it didn't really matter what he wore because as long as he did it so would everyone else with pretensions of coolness, Sasuke was still undecided.

It's very hard to choose clothing when one could wear anything and everything because it all looks good on oneself, even clothing usually reserved for members of the opposite sex. Although he suspected that choosing clothing usually reserved for members of the opposite sex might incite _them_ to yet _further _action, irrespective of how illogical it was to act this way.

So, for Sasuke, dressing was an important issue. If he looked _too_ sexy, he'd be jumped, raped and smothered, but if he didn't look sexy _enough_, all other people would go around trying to look as un-sexy as possible because, hey, if Sasuke did it, it was cool, right?

"_People._" Sasuke sighed, allowing his breath to make his bangs flutter.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Neji was slightly annoyed that he was pinning up brightly-coloured pieces of cloth to the roof. It was only in two colours, blue and green, and he'd been told that it would make things seem more festive and less serious. Apparently Iruka-sensei hadn't trusted Lee to do it with any sense of taste at all, a sentiment with which Neji agreed. Tenten would have been _perfectly_ capable of pinning a few strips of material to the walls and ceiling, however, and _he_ would have been perfectly capable of choosing out a few pieces of music for dancing.

"You know, you look really strange with your pony-tail hanging down like that."

Lee was staring up at him from the floor and grinning like a maniac. He considered accidentally letting a few shuriken fall from his pouch, but knew that it would look amateurish. He was not an amateur.

It didn't take long to make the whole roof look like some demented, upside-down cloth ocean. In that short time, he'd been told he had a flair for interior décor three times. Lee had said it first, which he'd ignored. Gai-sensei had come to check up on them and said it again, at which point Tenten, portable CD player on the table in front of her and headphone in one of her ears, had suggested that Gai-sensei's impeccable sense of style might be of some use to him and Gai-sensei had beaten a hasty retreat. Neji might have thanked her had he not been so arrogant and incapable of admitting that he'd ever noticed anybody other than himself. The third time was the most worrying one, since Iruka had come in after running a few errands and preparing ingredients in the kitchens (they'd hired the kitchen on the Hyuuga estate, not because it was huge but, he suspected, just to humiliate him further) and stared up to have a look.

"Wow, Neji-kun, you've really got some artistic flair."

Neji glared at the roof and emphatically hated _people._

Tenten had winced and Neji was sure he would have cringed had he been made of stuff less stern. But, of course, the Hyuuga Prodigy did not cringe.

It was a twitch.

He didn't understand why they were making such a big deal out of a bunch of oversized curtains strung up randomly. Who cared if it looked a tiny bit like a really pretty pattern if you turned your head and squinted?

...Or even if you didn't turn your head and squint?

"Maybe you could paint some hangings for the walls." Iruka-sensei mused. Neji's eyes narrowed. No _way_. Damnit! He didn't want everyone to think he was sensitive or new age or emotional or – or _starving,_ or whatever else it was that artists did!

"They look quite bare next to Neji's excellent ceiling covers," Lee commented blithely. Neji was going to kill him the next time he challenged him. He could make it look like an accident. It would be easy enough to accidentally put a little too much pressure on his heart. Or maybe he...

"Yes, that's an excellent idea. Since Hinata-chan has volunteered to help cook, we should be fine without the extra person."

Well... At least he wouldn't have to cook, at home, in the kitchen where the lowest of the low (which meant the branch house members who were also civilians) prepared meals for the Main Family. Stupid Hinata. Humility didn't suit Main House members. It made them harder to hate.

He nodded curtly. Tenten coughed and shoved her hand behind her neck. "Uh, I'm really not so great a cook, Iruka-sensei." That was the understatement of the week. Even on missions where they'd run out of food and eaten animals and plants, Tenten's cooking was noticeably worse than any of her male partners.

Iruka seemed to have heard something of this from someone (possibly Gai-sensei, although that struck Neji as a little bit odd) because he narrowed his eyes. "Well, perhaps you should stay here and help Neji-kun, then, Tenten-chan." He agreed.

Lee and Iruka skipped off, except for the skipping part, and Neji was left trying to figure out how they'd get the wall-hangings done and on what.

"I suppose we go find some canvas, then." Tenten suggested. Neji shrugged. It was thick, closely woven and durable. If it could sail the high seas, it could handle some paint, water, and vertical hanging. "I mean, it's what people usually use to paint, right?" There was that, too, he conceded.

Canvas and paint weren't too hard to find, although the paint, in the quantity it was in, wasn't exactly masterpiece-grade stuff. It had been expensive enough as it was. He'd paid for it, allowing for the fact that he was better off than her, but accepted the money she'd shoved at him, flustered and embarrassed, after they'd left the shopping strip without comment or protest.

They had long, thin strips of the canvas, so they pinned several to one of the wider walls and looked at it for a moment.

"Now what?" He heard Tenten ask. He wasn't so sure himself.

"A picture would be stupid." He commented, thereby narrowing the field significantly. Tenten nodded.

She turned around, looking at the paint cans they'd gotten. Blue, green, yellow and red paints. "I don't like yellow." She said blandly.

Neji was about to ask how that was at all relevant, but quickly realised that she was just trying to find some way of narrowing the options.

"No yellow." He nodded.

"But someone once told me that red is a good colour for socialising." Either she knew how silly that sounded and was worried that he also knew how silly that sounded, or she was just hedging. He was betting on the former.

"Do you think green or blue with the red, then?" Personally, he thought that green might make the hell- err, hall, look like a giant Christmas decoration.

Tenten vocalised this, and they put the other cans aside. "Should we paint the background blue?" She offered. "And then we could, maybe, just have big red splashes on that?"

Neji shrugged. It didn't bother him one way or another. If they were bad, Iruka-sensei was unlikely to mention who'd done them. If they were good, everybody would still be thinking Neji was as multi-talented as they came. Win-win situation.

"Splashes? How?"

Tenten frowned. He was right, there was no way they'd get a decent sized splash of paint on them... "I think we need to take them down so it doesn't run, first." She said firmly.

He shrugged and they took the canvas back down. He gave her an amused, sardonic look.

"We'll get to the splashy things when we get to them." She said coolly.

He picked up a large tin of blue paint and a spongy roller and handed one to her. "Get painting."

That was twenty-one! Oh, her heart was pounding...

**Okay, okay, I have succumbed to pressure**. That was fast – two wailing reviewers and I change my entire fic around. Oh, well. This fic shall be TentenIno no more. Since so many people had problems with NejiSasu, the pairings are being switched.

This is how it's going to go (and, yes, you can tell me if you don't like them):

NejiTenten – a lot of people seem to like this... I suppose it's the crowd my other fics attract, huh?

SakuLee – I like it. No evil, EEEVIL SasuSaku here to undermine both characters and trap them in a petty, homey relationship that warps Sasuke's natural asshole-ness and turns Sakura from a kunoichi into a loving housewife and mother-of-three candy-eyed little psychopaths.

SasuNaru – You can complain, but I won't be changing it. It is _so_ canon.

KakaGai – Aside from the major comic relief benefit of throwing this in... I think it's cute.

KureHina – because I can't write this fic without YURI. Mostly because KeeraSango seemed kind of happy when I was tossing up TentenIno, but also because I think it'd be cute.

Usually, I'd put this at the top, but it was kind of long...

Anyway, tell me what you think (of the story, too ).

EDIT: Thank you, Logger456, for telling me I had used the wrong word for canon. Despite all sad, sad appearances, I am a native speaker of English. >.>

As for your other complaint, I believe that while Naruto is dominant in an emotional sense, Sasuke wouldn't be able to submit his ego to being uke. Thus, Naruto must be uke for the brief moments when they would be having sex, which isn't even in this story, and Sasuke must be a cold, arrogant, selfish (but undeniably cute) bastard. And you cannot say _that _isn't canon.

That is my reasoning, so please refrain from publicly insulting my (admittedly limited) intelligence in future, okay? Okay.

Moving on.


	5. Night Approaches on Four Inch Stilettos

See first chapter for disclaimer.

Okay... This is chapter five, and I'm still not started with the actual pairings. Ho-hum. It's probably going to be long, then.

**Total Idiocy – chapter 5**

Hinata may not have been the most effective ninja around, but she was confident in her skill as a cook. She was confident enough to suggest some small changes and additions to Iruka-sensei's ideas. He was quite grateful for the assistance, candidly admitting that he could whip up a meal for one, but that he was no star cook himself. She'd tried to sound sad when he'd said that Neji wouldn't be helping, and she really would have liked to get a chance to see Tenten again, but she just wasn't missing her cousin that much as she pottered happily around the kitchen, doing the actual cooking and relegating the prep to Lee-san and Iruka-sensei.

They were making a series of small, sweet-and-savoury baked goods for the tables in addition to the pre-prepared and packaged food that was being bought and a sizeable order of dango that seemed to have been a bribe to get Anko-san to attend. Iruka made a few irritated noises about not being able to make her comply to the dress-code properly, but he didn't speak ill of other adults in front of children or overly-impressionable adolescents, as Hinata and Lee surely were.

Things ran very smoothly, Hinata thought, aside from Lee's misadventure with metal and the microwave and Iruka's running out to by a new one (out of his own pocket, too, Hinata thought, scandalized. She must remember to repay him). Well, there was also the small part about Iruka-sensei accidentally bumping the dial and burning four trays worth – he'd been so upset, too, when it was really her fault; she should have checked the oven regularly.

Either way, the sweet things were done. Now she could put away the sugar and make sure nobody mistook it for salt again. On to the savoury!

Oh, dear, she thought vehemently, unable to think anything more forceful, this may not be good.

Ino was so incredibly irritated. So irritated that Shikamaru was beginning to fear for his life. They were already running quite late, but she didn't look like finishing anytime soon.

Her dress was perfect. Stunning, in fact. It matched her eyes perfectly, even though she'd had to be very careful with the peroxide to make it so. It was very long, so long that had she not dieted like mad and squeezed into the smaller size, it might have trailed the floor. That said, the slit up her thigh made no pretensions of modesty, sliding up all the way to the curve of her hip and making the possibility of underwear debatable, while the neckline sunk slightly before plunging into her upthrust cleavage.

This was, obviously, not the cause of her distress. The first problem had been met and dealt with. It came in the shape of what were supposed to be thick gold ringlets, but had actually turned out to be limp yellow waves.

A short, brutal encounter with a straightening iron had negated this problem. It had, however, caused another, less easily fixed problem. Her blue-painted, perfectly manicured acrylic nail had snapped. Thankfully it was at the tip of her natural nail and thus caused no additional pain, but it just did not look right.

Add this to the fact that she was definitely running out of mascara – a must, because blond eyelashes were simply not tolerable – and could find no way to prevent it from clumping together in the most _unseemly_ manner and Ino was downright grumpy.

"Ne, Shikamaru?" She could hear Chouji mumbling a query. She sighed, squishing her irritation down as far as it would go so it was ready to jump back and bite someone on the arse later in the evening. "Why do girls spend s much time in front of their mirrors?"

Oh, so he thought she was _vain_, did he? She simmered quietly and chose to ignore the comment along with the deer-in-headlights look delivered by Shikamaru.

Her four-inch stiletto heels made a series of sharp _clicks_ as she stalked across the tiles, collecting various bits and pieces she would doubtlessly need later in the evening.

"Chouji!" She couldn't help but shriek. "You've got _crumbs_ all over yourself!" As maternal as it might look on paper, Ino did not sound at all as though she was simply chiding him. Heavens, no – she sounded more as though she were challenging him to a death match.

Chouji, long used to Ino's oratory talents, ate the largest of the crumbs and brushed the rest off onto her floor with a no-harm-done-please-don't-shoot smile. She decided to ignore his blatant lack of respect for her previously-spotless home.

"And your hair." She snapped, finding the sharp, authoritarian noises of her heels quite satisfying as she marched over. "Shikamaru..." she growled, straightening the collar of his shirt.

"Come _on_, Chouji, we're _late_! How long can it take to dust yourself off!" She snapped before stalking out the door and staring determinedly in the direction of the hall.

Shikamaru followed her at an easy amble, listening with half an ear to Chouji, who had produced a bag of chips.

**Hmmm... Done, but short.**

I'd love to say short and sweet, but I'd be fooling myself. Anyway, I need to stop worrying about updating and start worrying about the actual story. . 

Um, guys, the story has been written up to chapter seven. If yaoi and yuri bothers you that much, I may keep my original pairings for this one and write another, totally heterosexual, clean-cut, non-yaoi version for all of the people that don't like it.

I like writing, anyway. But I will not do SasuSaku. EVER... unless somebody pays me...


	6. Spike

See first chapter for disclaimer.

W00t. I'm not sure if this chapter is funny. I think that I've made fun of Neji's stoicism again, but Sasuke will make a win for The Arrogant later in the fic.

**Total Idiocy – Chapter Six**

Iruka surveyed his handiwork as the students (some looking considerably brighter than others) trickled in one by one. Actually, it seemed to be more of a case of team by team. It was so good to see that the cells he'd put together worked together so well.

The hall looked wonderful. He'd have to congratulate Neji and Tenten on the walls at some point, since they appeared to be attracting a lot of positive attention and the way Lee had gotten the temporary, softer lights behind the fabric on the roof so the entire hall was bathed in aqua was genius.

Oh- there was a member of that group now. Neji looked quite attractive in black and red, even if it wasn't strictly formal. Of course, a number of the girls were not dressed in strictly formal clothing either...

Sakura was wearing a high-necked scarlet little dress with a flared skirt and soft-looking ankle-boots. He had been about to tell her that it wasn't exactly formal until Lee had arrived and he realised that any criticism would not be particularly even-handed. The boy with the eyebrows was wearing green, which should not have been such a great surprise. But the pants were spandex and the top was spandex and the _boots_ even looked stretchy and shiny and green. Not to mention the leg-warmers. Fuzzy. And green. At least he'd managed to colour-coordinate.

Since it was more formal than his everyday clothing, Iruka had little room to complain, but... He sighed. Wondering what the other disaster of Konoha was trying to pass off as appropriate clothing, Iruka found himself searching for one Uzumaki Naruto.

The boy didn't appear to have turned up yet, which didn't really surprise Iruka. He'd suspected that only the obsessive-compulsive ones would turn up exactly on time.

With the word obsessive in mind, his attention turned to Uchiha Sasuke, who was seated at the most isolated table Iruka had allowed, resting his chin on the bridge his fingers made between his loosely clasped hands and staring with intense eyes into space, brooding. He appeared to be wearing a blue, button-down shirt with something sparkly peeking out from under it.

Jewellery. Who'd have guessed?

Shino was leaning in the corner, unconcerned that he was leaning against rough canvas and thick paint-splotches, staring out at the few other people in the room from over his collar. Iruka didn't see how a black trench-coat and slightly lighter sunglasses made for formal attire, but he was beyond arguing.

A feminine squeal of, "Sasuke-kun!" announced the arrival of Yamanaka Ino, who was followed shortly after by a disgruntled-looking Nara Shikamaru and a munching Akimichi Chouji. The girl was dressed to the nines. The boys looked as though they'd been coaxed, cajoled, encouraged, threatened, shoved and beaten into sort-of pressed dress shirts.

"Any of my kids here, yet?" Kurenai asked, scanning the room.

"Just Shino." Iruka replied, nodding towards the boy in the corner. Kurenai nodded.

"I thought maybe Hinata..." She trailed off as Naruto came through the doorways, grinning like a maniac and waving cheerfully at "Sakura-chan", who took the opportunity to exchange one extremely overzealous and unwanted suitor for the other.

Iruka was almost proud. The blond misfit had found appropriate clothing. Sure, it was bright, garish orange, but the colour didn't really matter. It was... pants, and a shirt and a pair of matching, lace-up shoes.

"He's certainly, uh, colourful." Kurenai commented after a moment of blinking.

"Oh, look, is that Hinata-chan?" Iruka pointed.

"Oh, she looks so _cute_," Kurenai-sensei purred. Iruka nodded. One who hadn't ignored the dress code. She was far more modest than either Ino or Sakura, wearing a soft, knee-length black dress. It had an interesting, bell-shaped skirt, but otherwise sported no frills or even interesting designs.

"She looks nervous as hell." Asuma commented from beside Kurenai, who glared at him.

Iruka was of the opinion that Hinata frequently looked, "nervous as hell", but didn't vocalise it. At least the others seemed to admire her recipes.

Chouji and her pastries were hitting it off quickly.

Kurenai was smiling while she looked at her student fondly. "She looks so sweet," she murmured. Asuma gave her an odd look and stubbed his cigarette out on the pole.

Naruto grinned maniacally, sliding one hand into his pocket to curl his fingers around the little bottle. This was going to be fun. He'd gone out of his way to look appropriate so Iruka-sensei wouldn't pull him up before he had time to execute his plan. Realistically, it was not a hard plan to execute. In a room full of ninjas, it _should_ have been, but who was looking at the punch?

Exactly. The teachers were up there cooing over Hinata-chan (who, for the record, _did _look very cute) and the Hyuuga kid with the eyes on the back of his head was occupied with Sakura, who appeared to be trying to hide behind him while Rock Lee made a rather extravagant marriage proposal.

Naruto took a moment to laugh at the expression on his face, even though it really wasn't all that funny and might actually land Lee in hospital.

Sasuke appeared to be off in his own little world.

With all of the people who'd bother confronting him preoccupied, Naruto leaned casually against the trestle table. With his leet ninja skills, he pulled the bottle from his pocket, uncapped it and emptied its contents into the large punch bowl in one swift movement.

"What are you doing, trying to poison us?"

Naruto turned and offered Kiba and the snarling Akamaru his best trustworthy smile. Kiba wondered briefly if Naruto was going to try and sell him something.

"Cut it out," he growled. He sniffed the air, blinked, and then jabbed a finger into his chest. "We can smell it."

Naruto laughed nervously. "Ehehe... but you're not going to tell anyone, right?" He asked hopefully. He wasn't the only one who'd been a recognisably good prankster in his Academy days.

Kiba sniffed again and his lips curled up a little. "I was going to do it myself." He admitted.

Naruto's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah," Kiba sighed, pulling a nearly-identical bottle out of his own pocket. "See?"

The blonde's eyes lit up with an idea. It was always a dangerous expression on Naruto. "Put it in," he hissed, standing in front of and rather too close to Kiba to hide the bottle.

Kiba frowned. "I don't think..."

"Aww, come on," Naruto coaxed. "Unless you're scared you're gonna get caught?" He added.

Now that his masculine pride had been infringed upon, Kiba was honour-bound to rise to the challenge. With his own, also leet, ninja skills, he repeated Naruto's earlier actions and shoved his face into the blonde's as he finished and Naruto lost sight of the bottle through slight-of-hand. "There." Kiba growled. He sniffed. "Hey, you smell kind of canine." He commented.

Naruto laughed nervously. "Naah, you must be getting confused! Yeah – hey, doesn't Sakura look hot?"

Kiba, distracted from his discovery, turned to look at the flash of red being forcibly dislodged by one Hyuuga Neji.

"I thought she liked Sa – Oh." He cut himself off as Lee continued to pursue her and Neji flinched wildly back from a poorly aimed, floating heart.

Eeew.

"Move." Ino's commend was followed by twin glares from Naruto and Kiba, but they moved and allowed her to get two drinks. Grins were exchanged behind her bared back.

**I'm done!**

I'm thinking I want to write Ino into a pairing (in a later fic. I just got the pairings worked out in my head for this one ), but I'm so BORED with ShikaIno. SasuIno is so improbable, though... and you can't pair Ino up with anybody who won't either put up with her or let her worship him...


	7. Of Sluts and Love Hearts

See First chapter for Disclaimer.

Okay, I got bored with writing the pairings and decided to disregard everybody's advice and/or requests. I like yaoi, I like yuri, and I like knowing that I've ruined this fic for some decidedly homophobic, whiny people.

In short, if you don't like my pairings, don't read the goddamn story.

Thank you.

_**Chapter Seven – Total Idiocy**_

Ino made her way across the room to Sasuke at a slow, sexy saunter bearing her two glasses of spiked punch. Her steps echoed in the mostly-silent room. She placed one glass down in front of him with a gentle click and perched herself on the side of the table, crossing her legs so her dress fell open to its full skin-showing potential and straightening her posture.

"Have you been to a dance before, Sasuke-kun?" She purred, wondering why Tenten was late – she was supposed to be doing the music, wasn't she?

Sasuke blinked out of his darkened thoughts and stared up at her for a moment before contempt slid into his eyes. He made a neutral noise in the back of his throat, hoping that, if he ignored her enough, she'd shut up and leave. He let his eyes slide back to the wall in front of him.

--------------

Neji really, really wanted to wake up now. The pink creature from Sasuke's cell was clinging to him like a... like a cerriped!

It was bad enough that Gai-sensei had put an extra clause in their mission declaring that their extra year of experience made it fair. So not only was he ignoring the very disturbed, very pink-haired presence attached to his shoulder – he briefly noticed that their shirts were matching colours. Damnit – he was dreading having to dance with one member of each sex. It wasn't that he'd have a problem – well, maybe with getting a half-respectable male to dance with him – but he'd have to... touch another person. And... dance.

Well, there was the small problem of his inability to dance. Branch House members were never taught. What was the point? They'd never go anywhere important. Another injustice in the house without walls, he thought sardonically.

And Lee's eyebrows were strangely hypnotising. He shook his head slightly. His movement seemed to frighten Sakura even more, which just pissed him off. Okay, that was about enough patience. Enough standing plank-stiff and pretending she didn't exist. Oh, _shit..._

There was a floating heart coming towards him. He peeled Sakura from his shoulder, taking her hands from the thumb and snarling at her when she wouldn't let go. Why was it that having Lee hit on them made girls less afraid to cling to him obscenely?

While he'd only had the experience with two people, he couldn't help drawing the parallels. Of course, Tenten might have clung to him anyway.

He dodged the heart by scooting back with his hips, an awkward movement that put him at a bit of a disadvantage with the slightly-hysterical girl. Fighting off the urge to hit her, he wrenched himself free and placed her down in front of his overzealous team mate before unhurriedly finding somewhere else to exist. Preferably in quiet, but he had few illusions of that sort.

-------------------

Shino watched the proceedings with cool eyes. He'd not wanted to come, but his father had suggested that it would offer some insight into human social activity. The underlying idea, he gathered, was that this was something he needed to familiarise himself with.

Watching was proving to be highly entertaining, if not exactly educational. Hinata was approaching him, no doubt to offer the usual pleasantries. He may not have been socially aware as such, but he recognised her attempts to form some type of connection with him, even if it was just though small talk.

"Ano... I thought, maybe, you weren't coming, Shino-kun." She offered. He decided that she was stating a fact, not trying to start a conversation.

"I am observing the behaviour of my peers." He said. Hinata shifted slightly, keeping her eyes lowered.

"That must be... entertaining."

He didn't reply, continuing to watch as Neji made his near-panicked retreat from the corner of madness. Hinata followed his gaze – he had no idea how she did that with his sunglasses in the way – and frowned a bit.

"Ah. Neji-niisan is here." She noted with almost no inflection. Shino nodded. Hinata, apparently out of words, smiled shyly at him and left hesitantly, as though worried she might offend him.

That was a pity; he rather liked her company.

---------------------------

Sasuke's sharp black eyes followed the movement of one Haruno Sakura with more care than usual. She was really, really clinging to Hyuuga Neji, who didn't seem to be doing a thing to stop it. His eyes narrowed and focused on details.

Her breasts were pressed hard into his back and side, stretching the red material tighter. Her front leg was lifted off the ground a bit, hiking her skirt up on her soft-skinned thighs. Her long arms were secured, possibly in hysteria, around his chest.

While Sasuke watched, ignoring Ino's oddly-silent presence, the arms slid up slowly to wrap around his neck. The dress ran up higher on her thighs again.

Neji seemed to have decided that that was most _definitely_ enough of that and was tearing her off his person with force.

Ino seemed to notice what had drawn his attention away from the lovely expanses of her own body on offer. She made an inelegant noise when she caught the scene and took another gulp of her drink. Obviously spiked; probably by Naruto. He'd save it. He'd need it later.

"Sakura's being a slut," she commented.

Sasuke eyed the scene for a moment more before returning his gaze to Ino. He really should defend her; he'd be running from Lee, as well, and she had yet to make herself annoying this evening.

He let his eyes run along Ino's thin ankles and up her long, shapely legs and totally exposed thigh and hip –it appeared that she was actually wearing underwear from the lace peeking out – to her small waist and over the even smaller bodice of her dress, letting it linger on the substantial amount of cleavage she was showing before finally resting on her face. He noticed, and was amused by, the way she shivered and blushed brightly.

"Sakura's not being slutty." He replied frostily. It took Ino a long moment to catch on. He delighted in the shattered look that crossed her face for a moment.

Then she pulled it together. "No, no, of course not. I suppose she was just trying to get away from Lee – yes, that's it," Ino mumbled.

Sasuke wouldn't smile.

Ino was distracted from her renewed Sasuke-stalking when almost everybody else's attention flickered to the doorways. She smiled faintly, admiring Tenten's dress. The fabric was soft and clingy around her more curvaceous body parts, earning a second glance from most of the males in the room. Black was a good colour on her, even if the skirt was alarmingly short and the boots alarmingly long. It was kind of funny how the boots had so many clasps.

Ino thought it was kind of sad how she'd never gotten to help her shop for a dress; she could think of some clothing that would look so much better on the older girl... not that she didn't look stunning.

Tenten flashed a grin around the hall and made her way up to the mezzanine level where the teachers (minus Kakashi) were talking to each other spiritedly. Fast-paced music followed shortly.

Ino turned back, about to ask Sasuke to dance, but found his seat empty. She sighed irritably, settling into the chair and allowing his leftover body warmth to sink into her – she hoped. Mm, essence of Sasuke, she thought, absently gazing at what she could see of Tenten's long thigh from where she was seated above her.

--------------------

Okay. This chapter wasn't all that funny, but _I_ had fun writing it. I like Sasuke in this chapter. He was so mean.

Ting Ting Yu Li–San, you are obviously a smart person, evidenced by the fact that your review was so well written. I would like to take the time out to mention that, while the original artist may have intended otherwise, this story is fanfiction and the author's tastes will be applied to the characters, situations and, yes, relationships. I'm sorry if this bothers you.

If you have any complaints, feel free to take it up with my secretary. He's the pink one with the snout and curly tail. Oh, and the wings.


	8. Boredom and Punch

See first chapter for disclaimer.

**Total Idiocy – chapter eight**

Neji was not having a good time. Neji was not even pretending to be having a good time. He'd finally gotten out of Sakura's insane death grip only to be faced with the even greater problem of having nothing to do at all.

Charmng. Bored with nobody to belittle. Where _was_ Lee, anyway?

A glance around revealed nothing of interest, except perhaps that Sasuke appeared to actually be hitting on Ino, who looked more than delighted by the prospect. He watched for a long moment more. Ino somehow managed to simultaneously blush and pale before Sasuke stalked off. Boring.

Hinata seemed to be talking to Shino, which would undoubtedly be dull. Inuzuka and Uzumaki appeared to be hitting it off, which would cause nothing but trouble. ... although, it seemed as though all they were doing was hitting on every female in a fifty metre radius. Boring

Shikamaru was watching Chouji eat, which Neji found a little bit disgusting, due to his unique ability to see the boy's internal organs with just a little effort. Eww. And boring.

He could always watch Hinata like a hawk and scare her every time she glanced back in his direction, but that had become less entertaining after the disastrous chuunin exam.

He supposed he could analyse all of the psychological problems in the hall, which would surely take up most of his night, but Shino appeared to have a monopoly on that, and, besides, he wasn't really interested. His demographic was almost uniformly unintelligent anyway. No need to waste good psychoanalytic skills on the likes of Naruto.

He certainly had his own problems, anyway. Through the side of his head, he glared at Hinata.

"Hey, I remember you," a soft voice intruded upon him. There was a girl in front of him. She was pretty, in a plain kind of way, but he couldn't place her. Probably his graduating class from the Academy.

"I don't remember you." He replied promptly.

She looked a little hurt, but smiled. "That doesn't matter. Will you dance with me?"

"No." Now she really looked hurt. What did she expect? She swallowed noisily and nodded. Actually, there seemed to be quite a few Konoha genin he didn't know.

Or, really, that he cared to know.

--------------------

Sasuke sighed in relief, settling into the comfortable space of wall perpendicular to Shino. They didn't acknowledge each other. They didn't talk. Shino took it for granted that Sasuke's presence would bring people (something he was not particularly adverse to currently, due to the nature of his study) and Sasuke took it for granted that Shino would drive them away. It was a good deal.

Sadly, Sakura remained undaunted by the presence of the bug-boy. Sasuke thought briefly she should have worn green, not red because it really didn't do anything for her complexion, which was already too pink-pale, if you asked him. She flounced across the hall towards his corner like a kamikaze on autopilot.

"Sasuke-kun! You look so handsome!" she squealed at him as she rushed over. He wondered if she was using him as an excuse to leave Lee looking forlorn a few metres away.

Really, someone should do something about those puppy eyes. Actually, someone should take a set of tweezers to those eyebrows, too. Or maybe judicious amounts of hot wax.

"I'm so glad you came! I thought maybe..." Sakura trailed off and he shot her a first-degree glare for implying that he would back out of a mission simply because it was distasteful to him. Even as distasteful as this.

"I didn't mean to imply – !" Sakura sputtered, floundering after a moment to change the subject most intelligently. "Do you dance, Sasuke-kun?"

Could he dance? Well, duh. No member of one of the big, old clans of Konoha would ever be brought up without knowledge of such basic social graces. Besides which, Sasuke would _hate_ to be in a position in which he'd _need _to know (such as _tonight) _and not know so even if he hadn't been taught, he'd have learnt. It was how he managed to seem naturally perfect.

Did he dance? Well now, that was a different question.

"No." He replied shortly. Sakura looked disappointed but brightened again after a moment.

"Would you like to learn?" She asked. He had to hand it to her, it almost sounded as though she was just being polite.

"No," His eyes travelled to the incredibly disgruntled Ino seated at his ex-table. He realised belatedly that he'd left his punch there. Damnit.

"I do not." It was a tricky predicament. He stalked past Sakura – easy enough, she was staring forlornly at the wall, which happened to be Shino, and contemplating something. Ino, however, was back in her element the second he approached.

And Ino in her element was really, really scary.

So it was that he was tackled – seriously, it was a very good thing that he had fantastic balance – by a squealing bundle of platinum-blonde and pale blue. A moment later, he heard the inevitable, enraged sounds of feminine pursuit –

"Ino, you cow!"

- and disentangled himself, continuing towards his punch. The two continued bickering loudly in the background, but he was focused on his objective.

Therefore it was very, very irritating to pick up his glass, sniff the substance inside it and realise that it had definitely been spiked. Very, very spiked. Honestly, the idea behind spiking a drink was to make sure the person it was destined for didn't notice it. Probably Ino.

Oh, well.

The chair at his once-ex-table was abruptly pulled back. "It's darker in this corner." Neji commented, looking decidedly unnerved. Sasuke took a moment out to wonder what could shake the unshakeable before shaking his head.

"Whatever." He also sat down. Thank gods there were two chairs there. If he had to be social, he might as well be social with people equally unsociable.

It was good that it was Neji, anyway, because he wanted to double-check his teacher's instructions. Kakashi wasn't above adding in criteria to torture his students.

"Is your mission different to ours?" He asked bluntly.

Neji eyed him, which was awfully polite, since he didn't really need to. He also didn't mention that he didn't know what Sasuke's mission was and thus could not make the comparison. He assumed. One thin eyebrow rose. "We have the same mission... except... Gai-sensei..." Neji trailed off, glaring up at the balcony.

Sasuke gathered that their teacher had done something strange again. "So you have to come here and dance with someone? And pretend to enjoy it?" He clarified carefully.

Neji nodded, glaring at the world. "We have to dance with two people," he added after a moment, remembering Gai-sensei's speech about gender discrimination in a post-sexual revolution world.

"Aa." It looked as though Neji's assignment was actually worse than his own. Charming.

---------------------------

"That's a pair that could cause trouble," Asuma commented, gesturing towards Naruto and Kiba with his chin. The boys appeared to be hitting on any female that would come near them. It wasn't unusual behaviour for Kiba, he knew, but Naruto seemed like a more... wholesome... kind of troublemaker.

"And another," Kunrenai added, pointing towards where Ino and Sakura were degenerating rapidly.

Iruka frowned. "Hmmm... perhaps we need to find some way to get them to socialize _outside_ their comfort zone – is that Hinata?" He interrupted himself, pointing over to where Lee seemed to have Hinata giggling delightedly.

"YOSH! MY PRIZE PUPIL – err, I mean, my brilliant student who is no more brilliant than the other two – HAS CURED HYUUGA-SAN OF HER SHYNESS!" Gai had made his appearance.

"You're not later than Kakahsi, you know." Asuma supplied helpfully, ignoring the outburst. Gai seemed to have found clothing that matched Lee's, although it was possible that Lee had found clothing that matched Gai's.

Ew, thought Kurenai succinctly, eyeing him quickly and looking away before he could misconstrue it.

------------------------

Okay, that's it for the moment. I hope you found it moderately entertaining.

Today, I have a teaser for the next instalment.

_Neji was in the middle of a huge a dilemma now. It was the best opportunity he'd have to suggest to a male that he might need to dance with him without actually destroying his dignity. Of course, this male was Uchiha and thus the destruction of his dignity was a moot point on account of the fact that whatever the actual situation didn't destroy, Sasuke would._

_Oh, goody._

"_I need to dance with you."_

_Well, **that** certainly didn't come out right. Sasuke gave him a disappointed look._

Bye bye.


	9. Again with The Drinks

See first chapter for disclaimer. I will promise _**no** fucking pairings_ to _anyone_.

_**Total Idiocy – Chapter Seven**_

Neji was in the middle of a huge a dilemma now. It was the best opportunity he'd have to suggest to a male that he might need to dance with him without actually _destroying_ his dignity. Of course, this male was Uchiha and thus the destruction of his dignity was a moot point on account of the fact that whatever the actual situation didn't destroy, Sasuke would.

Oh, goody.

Maybe he should ask anyway. Who else was he going to ask? Lee? He shuddered internally. "I need to dance with you."

Well, _that_ certainly didn't come out right. Sasuke gave him a disappointed look.

"I've heard that one before. I've heard that one _tonight_."

Neji winced. Well, there was no covering it up anymore. "I need to dance with a male."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

He really, really didn't want to answer that. But he would, because chances were Sasuke could read a lie. "Gai-sensei seemed to think it reflected the ideals of the sexual revolution."

Sasuke's face distorted.

"You look like I feel." Neji muttered, picking up the shredded remnants of his pride and swallowing it with the last of Sasuke's drink. Whoa. That must have been from the bottom of the bowl, he thought, feeling sort of dizzy.

Sasuke scowled at him and downed one that a girl had left there. "You did not just use the words "sexual" and "Gai" in the same sentence," he asserted flatly, and because he said it and he was Uchiha Sasuke, it was true.

Neji eyed him. "I see him every single day."

Sasuke stared at him with dawning horror. Tormented at home and at work. Did the poor boy know no peace? All in all, he _deserved_ that dance just for keeping his value system in order. Of course, that might have been the punch thinking.

"I'll dance with you."

"Are you serious?"

Sasuke stared at his empty glass, then at the people on the dance floor. Hinata appeared to be giving Lee dancing lessons (which was a Very Good Thing, as fer as he was concerned) and Naruto was doing something that looked as though it was straight out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but with less choreography. "Maybe after a few more drinks," he acquiesced.

Neji followed his line of sight and nodded.

As luck would have it, Tenten accosted him along his merry way to the punch-supporting table.

"Neji-kun," she greeted politely, "will you dance with me?"

Neji paused, frowning. He was going to dance with Sasuke, right? They'd negotiated it. And Tenten wanted to dance. Didn't he have to dance with two people, though? He nodded slowly, wondering if whatever was in the punch was actually even alcohol and not something nastier.

Tenten's grin frightened him. She was shiny and black-clad and pressed up against him and dragging him towards Hinata, which was definitely _not_ where he wanted to be.

"Oh, look – Tenten and Neji are dancing together!" Kurenai pointed. Iruka smiled. Gai-sensei cried and squalled something long-winded and flowery. It was what he did best.

"Does Hyuuga-kun look frightened to anybody else?" Asuma asked, leaning forward for a better look at his face.

"Now that you mention it, he does look sort of... unhinged." Kurenai nodded slowly, leaning forward.

"Neji-kun always looks unhinged." Kakashi said from behind them.

Asuma jumped about a foot in the air. Kurenai was less fortunate since she'd been leaning out further, actually falling over the railing.

She would have landed on her feet except for her shoes, which were chosen according to the dress code and thus way, way too high for any ninja tricks. So Kurenai almost landed on her feet, had her feet slide out from under her and landed on her arse on the floor with a shriek. Her ankles hurt from the shock and her backside was going to bruise and Kakashi was going to _pay_.

She glared up at Kakashi with her red, red eyes.

"Er... Oops?" He said.

Asuma sighed.

Gai-sensei had leapt down after his female colleague to check if she was okay and was now making a stomach-rolling speech about trust and love and how Kakashi was a mean, _mean,_ selfish bastard.

Kurenai's eyes were glittering strangely.

Out of the corner of his eye, Iruka could see Neji moving quickly and quietly towards a table in a darker corner of the room bearing drinks. He frowned, sure that that corner shouldn't have been so dark.

Oh, well... as long as they were doing something social.

----------------------

"Ne, Ino-chan... are you sure you should be drinking that?" Tenten asked, eyeing the blonde's punch with suspicious eyes. She had settled in beside the trestle table, staring out at everyone else and wondering why nobody had asked her to dance. She was the prettiest girl there, no competition.

Even if Tenten was kind of a close second.

First, Kiba had harassed her, which didn't count as a request to dance. She was pretty sure he'd been drinking his own spiked punch, because no man in his right mind thought that telling a woman she had a 'nice rack' was going tot get him laid, or even a dance. Well, maybe if he'd asked to dance. He wasn't _ugly_, per se, so it probably wouldn't have been that bad. Except that he'd have trodden on her shoes – an offence currently punishable by death, considering their price tag.

"Ino!"

"Eh?"

"You know that's spiked, right?"

"Um... I guess."

"Because Naruto and Kiba were behaving kind of oddly around here earlier," she added. "And Sasuke and Neji seem to be talking without killing each other and thus must be drunk."

Ino nodded. Tenten's powers of observation were good, she decided.

Ino glared at the culprit as her fifth drink was carefully removed from her tenuous grip. "Aren't you supposed to be playing music?" she asked acidly, all good feeling for the other girl dissipating in direct proportion to her access to her drink.

Tenten shrugged, ignoring the implied dismissal and offering her a cheerful smile. "It's a new player. All I had to do was put in the CDs and press 'random'," she explained, taking a sip of Ino's drink.

Ino frowned for a moment, thinking. "I guess that makes sense. Didn't you say that the punch was spiked?"

Tenten shrugged again. "It's just Naruto and Kiba. They're not inclined to poison us and they're not being particularly subtle about it, so I'd say we're safe. Although... I'm kind of surprised that Gai-sensei didn't notice and try to get them into youthful children's rehab or something," she added in a mutter, glaring up at her teacher who looked a little as though he was hitting on Kurenai-san. She doubted it. He didn't exactly give off 'straight' vibes.

Ino giggled, tipping a little. Tenten grabbed her shoulder, hoping she wasn't going to have to carry her anywhere.

"Come on... lets sit you down over here," Tenten cooed, tugging on Ino's wrist gently. Ino nodded, following. It was kind of amazing that she was so balanced in those spikes after how that punch had smelled.

The pair settled down at a table not too far removed from the room so they could still catch the social action, should there be any.

Ino realised that Tenten was still holding her full glass and made a snatch for it. Irrespective of her continued ability to walk, her reflexes didn't compare to Tenten's. The brunette pulled it back out of her reach easily.

Naturally, Ino overbalanced and fell face-first onto her friend's lap.

------------------

_**Okay, this is this chapter's end. **_

Talk to me. Comment. Hell, bitch about it. Just feed me reviews.


	10. Dancing in the Plumbing

Please see first chapter for disclaimer.

Blue-Fire310, your reviews make me smile. I'm glad someone else likes yaoi, yuri and totally crack pairings.

Since I'm sure I'm not the only one who is loosing track, we shall recap.

Sasuke and Neji are happily becoming quasi-inebriated in a corner. Ino is lying in Tenten's lap, to which we have yet to see Tenten's reaction. Shikamaru is watching Chouji eat. Kurenai is plotting Kakashi's doom. Naruto and Kiba have been suspiciously absent for the last few chapters, possibly cooking up some nefarious plot between them. Hinata is teaching Lee to dance. Shino is watching the proceedings with interest. There are a bunch of other, less important ninja wandering around for atmospheric purposes.

Anko and Genma have yet to show, not to mention Jiraiya.

This is all for now.

-----------------------

"Your turn," Neji mumbled, staring at his empty glass.

Sasuke made a non-committal noise and passed the older boy his own glass, still half full.

"Do you think we can still dance without making total idiots of ourselves?" he asked after a moment.

Neji frowned. "Maybe we should dance somewhere where nobody can see us."

"Yeah. That's a good idea." By this statement, the fans can tell that Sasuke was well and truly tipsy. Not totally sloshed, but pleasantly fuzzy.

"So we're leaving?"

"We're not supposed to leave." Sasuke pointed out. "Can't fail the mission."

"Oh. Yeah. Alright. Where?"

"You're... really drunk."

"Not more than you are. And you're not."

"Not what?"

"Not that drunk."

"Oh. Yeah. I guess you're not that drunk either, then. Why did we drink it?"

"No idea. We need to dance." Neji pointed out.

"We could always go to the bathrooms to dance."

"Yeah, but... wouldn't that be kind of cramped?"

"Sometimes," Sasuke replied ambiguously, standing up. It was easy. The clans had fast metabolisms. It had to do with being superhuman and stuff.

Neji followed suit. Neither of them had difficulty walking. Well, they didn't until Sakura tackled Sasuke like a rabid animal, squeeing loudly. He had imbibed a significant amount of alcohol, so he couldn't quite manage his usual stoic tolerance.

In fact, he tripped.

------------------------

"Lee-san," Hinata murmured, surprised. "You're actually quite coordinated." Her hand flew from his shoulder to her mouth. Oh, dear. She'd said something mean to him. She really hadn't meant to imply that she'd thought he _wasn't_ coordinated, but he was just so...

He didn't seem to notice that the comment might have been an insult. "Of course!" He agreed with a rather frightening grin, "taijutsu makes _everyone _coordinated!"

For a moment she was relieved that he hadn't taken offence, but then Hinata thought back to her early lessons with Hiashi and Hisashi. She certainly hadn't gotten any more coordinated about her taijutsu, although it was possible that that was just her.

She smiled, wondering how different other taijutsu styles were. "Sure," she agreed easily. His grin widened, which she hadn't thought possible, and caught the light. It temporarily blinded her sensitive eyes, but she didn't really mind.

Lee was such a sweet boy, even if he did look a bit odd.

--------

"Ow," Sasuke muttered when his vision returned. Sakura, spread out on top of him, looked a little dazed.

Neji had to walk towards them, which made Sasuke think that maybe she'd made him slide when his head had hit the floor.

"Hi," Sasuke greeted him, prodding at Sakura experimentally.

"Hi," Neji replied, also prodding at her. After several long minutes, he got tired of that and pulled her off Sasuke's body so she could think a little better and hopefully operate on her own.

He rolled her out onto the floor, eyeing the giddy look in her sparkly green eyes. She blinked once, twice. Sasuke made a hasty retreat, taking Neji with him.

Sakura sat up with a mechanical kind of movement that tempted Neji to take a better look at her bone structure and looked around left, right, left, right, left, right. "Eh, eh? ... Sasuke-kun?"

--------------

Sasuke wasn't running from Sakura. Sasuke didn't _run_ from anything or anyone. He was just leaving very, very quickly.

The door should have closed behind him with a bang, but it didn't. He turned, trying to see what was obstructing the closure of the door.

Oh. Right. Neji.

He opened the door again and pulled the older boy through before slamming it closed with the appropriate bang. "Sorry," he muttered.

Neji nodded mutely, looking at the bruise beginning on his wrist where the door had attempted to close through it.

Sasuke, who was feeling slightly more honest with himself than usual, decided that he should probably change the subject before Neji tried to kill him because he wasn't sure that he could win. "So we're supposed to dance in here?"

It was, like most bathrooms, cramped and painted in a really stupid shade of blue. Although, that might have just been Sasuke's opinion on the colour.

"Whose stupid idea was that?" he asked, looking around.

"Yours," Neji answered.

Sasuke glared. "It's salvageable," he muttered. And because it had been his idea, they were going to see it through. At least they could still hear the music.

"Whatever," he mumbled, then paused as though remembering something, "Can you teach me how to dance?"

Sasuke blanched. "You were just dancing with Tenten!" he growled.

Neji shrugged. "Tenten can't dance either. It was... improvised," he nodded, agreeing with what he'd said.

Sasuke's glare was becoming more and more tangible by the moment. "Alright," he mumbled, "come here. And we're _not_ slow-dancing."

Neji scowled. "I'm not much happier about this than you are, you know," he pointed out. Sasuke snorted doubtfully. It was a very inelegant noise.

------------

Tenten stared down at the blonde head in her lap, wondering just how much Ino had had to drink. "Ino-chan?" she asked, poking her back experimentally.

Ino sat up with a muffled noise, gagging. "Bleah. Synthetics," she commented. Tenten chuckled.

"I think, perhaps, that you've had enough to drink, Ino-chan," she suggested, moving the blonde's drink further away from her.

Ino frowned, giving her a pout from under product-darkened eyelashes. Tenten fought not to melt and settled for an impassive look. She'd kept it from when Gai-sensei and Lee were making a scene, not to mention the numerous blistering dressings-down she'd received from Neji over the years, which were irritatingly different from blistering undressings, of which she'd received none. Where was Neji, anyway?

Ino seemed to realise that she wasn't thinking about her anymore, and didn't bother to sit up fully, waiting for the warm weight on her lap to drag Tenten's attention back.

"Tenten-chan?" she asked innocently, attaching the suffix to her name for the first time. It didn't really sound right, but Ino thought it was cute, anyway.

"Yes?" Tenten replied, coming back to cold reality. Or, it would have been cold if Ino hadn't been lying on her. Why was she doing that? Tenten shifted her knee, a subtle reminder to Ino, who didn't bother to move. She sighed quietly and took another sip of her alcohol-laden drink. Really, they could have done a better job, she thought irritably as the taste of fruity alcohol hit her.

"Are you and Neji-kun dating?"

Tenten spluttered, getting reddish punch in Ino's hair. The blonde didn't seem to mind too much, which was a sign of exactly how much she'd had to drink. _Dating_? What, was he going to carry her schoolbooks and pick her up when class finished or something? The image made her giggle, a picture of a blushing, stumbling Neji acting awkward.

Ino seemed to take that as a negative, anyway, because she frowned, asking, "But you... _like_ him, right?"

Tenten shrugged uncomfortably, forced to admit to herself that she _admired_ Neji, but that his personality wasn't exactly up to scratch for _dating._ "I... suppose," she agreed hesitantly.

"You like the ideal," Ino decided, nodding to herself and rolling over, so her lower legs were dangling off the side of her own chair as though she were sitting upright and her upper body was cradled in Tenten's lap. She briefly thought that she was lucky that her underwear matched her dress, since anyone in the right position must have been getting an eyeful right about now.

Tenten seemed to mind more than her, because she lifted the dangling part of Ino's dress and dropped it onto her lap.

"Thanks," Ino mentioned politely, trying to think of what she'd been saying. It had been important. "Oh, yeah. The ideal. You think, hey, wouldn't that be great? Because he's pretty much perfect, and he's great fantasy material, yeah?" Tenten raised an eyebrow and nodded, wondering where Ino was going with this. "But you know that you'd never actually get along in a relationship because he's an egotistical, arrogant prick, right?" Ino grinned, as though sure she'd gotten it right.

Tenten laughed out loud. "That about sums it up, yes," she agreed. Maybe everyone was more insightful when they were drunk, or maybe Ino was just more honest about her _own_ relationships when she was drunk. "It's the same with Sasuke, right?"

Ino nodded sadly. "Yeah," she agreed. "He's really cool, unbelievably handsome, great at everything and his clothes _always_ match – and he's loaded to boot – but..."

"He's kind of bipolar?"

Ino frowned, thinking. "Yeah," she agreed after a moment, nodding. Tenten waited for a moment for the next part of that thought. Ino didn't disappoint. "I'm sure he'll find someone just like him someday, though. And he'll be hap – well, he'll be content, anyway."

Tenten giggled, trying to think of Sasuke as happy. Maybe not.

---------------------------

"That was your plan?" Naruto asked, supremely irritated. Kiba and he were in the corridor outside the bathroom on account of the fact that Iruka-sensei wouldn't be able to overhear the conversation. "You thought you'd just sit back and watch?"

"Well, what was _your_ brilliant plan, brat?" Kiba growled back. Akamaru echoed him with a rough-sounding woof.

"I... uh... that's _not_ the point!" Naruto scowled.

"Well, what _was _the point, then?"

Naruto spluttered for a moment.

"Idiot," Kiba declared. Naruto glared, but since he's just so _cute_ when he glares, it didn't have exactly the desired effect. Akamaru whined softly and Kiba tapped him roughly on the nose. "Don't listen to him," he instructed.

Naruto raised his eyebrows. "I can't understand him, stupid."

Kiba ignored the comment with a supercilious glance. "You're not listening, then," he decided, leaning back against the blue-painted wall.

Naruto mirrored him on the other side. "Well, after we've gotten them drunk, what are we going to do with them?"

"I don't know," Kiba admitted, frowning. "Like I said, I was just going to watch people make idiots of themselves and hope Shino got very, very thirsty." He chuckled at the mental image of the stoic boy drunk.

Naruto must have had a similar idea, because he laughed. "Well... the perverted old hermit said he would be here. He's pretty much always late, though. Maybe he'll have some ideas."

"Are you sure we should tell him?" Kiba asked dubiously.

Naruto shrugged. "Saa... he'll figure it out eventually, anyway. And he's not going to be angry if it helps him get some girl's clothes off," Naruto scrunched up his nose.

---------

I'm not sure that Naruto should be so distasteful about getting girls' clothes off, but I remind myself that he is talking about Jiraiya and then a general lack of respect seems in order.

I hope that was as entertaining for you to read as it was for me to write.

- Yasi


	11. Yes, it Hurts

See first chapter for disclaimer.

As of now, I am taking crack requests. I promise not to Rice-out over pairings this time.

Thanks.

--------------------

"This isn't working."

"No, it's not."

Unfortunately for the fangirls, the alcohol had mostly worn off our intrepid anti-heroes by this point. Mostly, but not totally. They were still a bit buzzed, but not too buzzed to realize that dancing in a public restroom was stupid.

"I can teach you outside if you want." Sasuke offered, somewhat enamoured of the idea of teaching – it implied that he had more knowledge to impart.

Neji shrugged. "You think people will remember in the morning?"

Sasuke sighed. The ones that had had any of that lethal punch wouldn't. "Maybe. We can always say we were off our faces."

Neji raised an eyebrow but nodded. "Alright," he had to wonder what Naruto had put in the punch. He had to get him some of that.

They ventured forth from the bathrooms, ignoring the twin looks of suspicion they got from Naruto and Kiba on their way. Akamaru yapped and Neji told him to shut up. Kiba might have picked a fight with Sasuke, but not Neji – not after sticking by Hinata's hospital bed day and night for a week.

--------------

The crash and tinkle of broken glass was unanticipated, but Iruka had expected her to turn up late and obnoxious at some point during the night.

"No need to worry, I'm here!" she crowed, a lopsided grin across her face. Genma set one hand on her upper arm to steady her. She tugged away with a glare, almost toppling over in her attempt to gain her freedom.

Iruka could have slapped himself.

Anko was dressed to impress, with smeared makeup and barely-there shorts, a mesh top and a bra that the people at Victoria's Secret may have been dubious about. He fought the urge to remove the half-eaten dango dangling from her mouth before she choked, knowing full well that she'd probably take his arm off.

Kakashi already making polite conversation with her – she was drunk and barely-clad, he supposed – and, unless she'd gotten four inches taller than him overnight, she was flirting with a broken neck, what with being trashed in those boots. Perhaps they should take her weapons from her before she hurt herself.

Or one of the kids, for that matter.

"I threw her in the lake before taking I brought her here, but I don't think the pint she drank after that helped much," Genma explained conversationally.

"Truly," Iruka growled, and Genma shrugged defensively. At least he'd paid some attention to the dress requirements, even if he'd replaced his forehead protector with a scarf, garishly coloured to clash with the rest of his outfit.

"Shut up, shut up!" Kurenai hissed at them, tugging on Iruka's arm. "Look, look! _Sasuke_ and _Neji_ are _dancing_!" she squealed, barely containing her fangirlish delight.

"_Together!"_ She added, and Kakashi stopped hitting on Anko, pulling a Polaroid out from somewhere as Gai-sensei burst into joyful tears, murmuring something about enjoying the fleeting fruits youth had to offer and the brilliance of the sexual revolution and how he'd known all along.

"Fruits," Kakashi agreed, thinking of how his student had never had any interest in the various girls following him around and the whole Orochimaru thing, "is one way of putting it," leaning over the railing next to Iruka. Anko, drunk and easy, leaned next to him, overbalancing slightly. He caught her at the arm, not unlike Genma had done earlier, using the excuse to let his hand linger. She didn't seem to mind so much this time.

He brought his mind back to the task at hand, raising his camera. At the very least, they could be comforted by the fact that they weren't dancing too badly. Quite well, even. He glanced towards Lee and Hinata, wondering what the Hyuuga heiress thought of this turn of events.

He raised an eyebrow when he saw a panicked Lee barely holding her up from her swoon. That was one way of reacting, he agreed.

He petted Anko on the back and almost lost his fingers before trotting off to change the song Tenten had playing. Hopefully, he could catch a shot of them doing something really dirty. He wanted something really good to hold over the over-prideful head of one of his better students for the rest of his, hopefully, abnormally long life.

------------

The change in lighting was irritating, Neji found. If it were darker, he'd feel less self-conscious pressing up against Sasuke. In public at least. Not that Sasuke seemed to mind all that much. He could have sworn that that was a smile that flashed back at him.

Hinata-sama seemed to have passed out, and Naruto and Kiba appeared to be having a communal fit in the corner, but it sort of faded when Sasuke turned and he could see that, yes, he _was_ smiling. That was going to take some adjusting to.

------------

Thanking people for reviewing. I'm hoping to hit 100 reviews within the month, which means I need 12 more!


	12. Word Of Mouth

See first chapter for disclaimer.

Thank you.

---------------------

"Do you like the cheddar cheese ones, or the parmesan?" Chouji asked, holding up two forms of savoury pastry, "Or," he held up another one, "do you like the sweet ones better?"

Shikamaru shrugged, taking the sugar-loaded one.

"Do you think Ino's drunk enough to let us leave quietly?" Chouji asked, trying a different topic.

Shikamaru raised his head from the table and glanced over at Ino and Tenten for a moment. They seemed to be discussing something either sad or philosophical. Since he was pretty sure Ino was smashed, he'd go with the latter.

"No. She's still conscious."

"Bummer."

"Mmm."

It was about the extent of their conversation.

Oh, no, wait.

"Hey, are Neji and Sasuke dancing?"

Shikamaru looked up and squinted. "Nah. Mass hallucination... Or, at least, that's what they'll tell you."

---------

"Hinata-san," Something smiled down at her in relief.

"Gaaah!" she shrieked, backing up, before she realised it was Lee. Oh, that was so mean of her! "Oh, um, Lee-san... s-sorry! I didn't recognise you right away," she explained, nearing panic. He waved it off easily, giving her a bright (kind of scary) smile and a thumbs up.

Her eyes were a little delicate for that, actually, she decided, squinting in the flash.

"Never fear, Hinata-san, I'm just glad that you are awake. You had me worried," he smiled. He must be very hard to insult, Hinata thought, considering all the mean things she'd accidentally said to him over the course of the night.

"Ano, Lee-san, do you know how long I was out for?" Hinata asked softly.

"Not long at all," he replied, offering her a hand up. If only he was just the least, tiniest bit cute, Hinata found herself thinking. Her next thought was: I should make sure I don't drink any of that punch.

Hinata nodded and accepted his hand, using it to pull herself to her feet. As soon as her head was off the ground, she could see Neji and Sasuke dancing again. Someone seemed to have changed Tenten's song to something less... wholesome, and they were dancing to fit it.

Charming, she thought to herself. Lee frowned, also glancing over her shoulder. "That reminds me," he mumbled.

"Excuse me, Lee-san, but... that... reminds you of what?" she asked, hesitating to refer to the glorified humping behind her.

"Oh, that I have to dance with a male at some point tonight," he said softly.

Poor boy. He had enough trouble getting a girl to dance with him. Hinata frowned, wondering if one of his team members... never mind, she aborted the thought, considering who his team mates were and that Tenten was female.

"Oh," she replied, on account of her lack of appropriate help. Then the neurons sparked. "Lee-san, why don't you ask Gai-sensei to dance with you?" she asked gently.

Lee's eyes widened comically. "Of course!" he punched the air with his fist in youthful triumph, sparkling wildly. "Gai-sensei will surely help me fulfil my mission to the best of his (astoundingly brilliant) abilities by dancing with me!"

Hinata, slightly frightened, took an involuntary step back before steeling herself, squaring her shoulders (sort of. You can't expect that sort of change overnight, you know) and boldly agreeing. Well, she thought agreeing was bold, what with the total lunacy she was encouraging.

Then the doors burst open. Everything paused.

Even Sasuke and Neji.

Although, admittedly, that was because the music also stopped of its own accord in shock.

Lee turned towards the door way.

For some strange reason, the Sand trio was in the doorway.

Time seemed to stand kind of still, or at least move slowly. Cherry blossoms and leaves fluttered by randomly. There was the soft noise of many, many silent people blinking in unison.

"Um, why are you here?" Iruka asked.

Gaara, at the front of the oddly contrived, triangular formation, shrugged, looking at his siblings over his shoulder. Temari, who was, at least, wearing a dress, even if the amount of fishnet didn't really gel with the dress code, looked a little confused before shrugging. Kankuro, totally at odds with any dress code there might once have been, looked even more confused.

"It was your idea," he pointed out to the redhead. "We don't know why we're here."

For a moment, Lee had to wonder what it would be like to have team mates that followed your every whim before deciding that he didn't really want to be Neji anyway.

"Oh, yeah," Garra mumbled, glancing to Iruka. "I heard there was a dance," he commented in his deep, raspy, Akira Ishida voice.

Abruptly, the music started up again. Everyone startled.

Shrugging and assuming that either it was a mass hallucination or just another one of those real, freaky things that happened in Konoha sometimes, Neji and Sasuke continued dancing. Yes, it was frightening for the spectators. No, they weren't doing it badly. It was _Neji_ and_ Sasuke_, guys. Imperfection isn't natural.

Lee waved at Gaara, feeling that the redhead's repeated attempts on his life were good building blocks for a fun, stable friendship. Gaara stared at him for a long, green moment before shrugging and sauntering over.

Lee sparkled. Hinata frowned and decided that now was a good time to go visit Shino in his corner, or make sure Kiba wasn't doing something that would get someone killed. She felt Gaara's eyes on her as she retreated. She shivered. Freaky.

Temari crashed next to Tenten and Ino, glaring at the room. "This is so stupid," she commented. Tenten shrugged uncomfortably. Ino smiled faintly, waving to her from Tenten's lap.

"She's smashed," Temari pointed out.

"Yep," Ino replied happily, after a moment of figuring out what had been said. "Naruto and Kiba spiked it,"

Temari eyed the poisonous-looking punch, reached for Tenten's glass and sniffed it. "Yep," she agreed, flinching back from it. "You mind if I drink this?"

Tenten shook her head. "I'm not much of a drinker. Just promise me I won't have to carry you home," she said.

Temari snorted derisively, "Lightweight," she muttered, tipping her head back. She coughed after she'd drained it, choking, "subtle, aren't they?"

Tenten nodded. "Oh, absolutely. They're lucky that poisoning's mostly a job for kunoichi,"

"Mmm..."

"I like poisons," Ino interjected with a lopsided smile. Her hair had come out and was dangling over Tenten's lap. Temari gave her an odd look at that statement.

"She has a flower shop," Tenten explained.

"Ah,"

----------------------------------------------

Okay, that was a significantly longer chapter than the last one, right, guys? I'm dedicating this chapter to RainOwl, who bugged me for more, and Shi Rurouni of the Aphrodesiac, who wanted the Sand trio to drop by. I actually wasn't going to put them in, but I have.

On an aside, updates may get even slower, on account of the fact that I have no idea where this is going (well, yeah, I do, but not much of an idea), and I have exams to study for.

Thanks,

Yasi


	13. Welcome to Reality

Please see chapter one for disclaimer.

------

"Shino," Hinata said carefully, "Have you seen Kiba?"

Shino gave her what she thought was a long, cool stare, before reluctantly answering, "He is with Naruto and... the Sannin,"

Hinata frowned, looking around. "Tsunade is here?"

Shino looked uncomfortable. "The other one."

Hinata's first thought was something along the lines of, _shit! Orochimaru is here – run, hide!_ Then she got over her panic and remembered that there was another Sannin, and that this one, too, was cause for worrying occasionally. She looked around, sending her hair flying.

"Eeto... ah! ... oh," she mumbled, flushing and turning her face back to Kiba. "He's going to get arrested," she said fearfully.

Shino shrugged. "That is his problem."

"O-oh," Hinata stuttered, glancing back over her shoulder at the scene unfolding in the dim recess where the bulge the gesturing hands made in the material met the wall. She squinted at the diagram the perverted old hermit was holding up. Although, diagram really implied that it was instructive in some way. Naruto and Kiba were staring at it intently and she didn't _think_ Kiba's brain would derail at a life-size depiction of a very generously proportioned, very naked woman.

"What... what are they looking at?" she asked blankly.

When she turned around, Shino was giving her an intent stare. She covered her mouth with one hand, "Oh, no, I didn't mean... I, er... never mind, Shino-kun," she bobbed her head, mortified, and made a hasty retreat. Shino shrugged and continued staring blankly at the picture of the girl.

Hinata crept closer. She knew that, chances were, Jiraiya would recognize her presence, but she wasn't worthy of her clan if she couldn't sneak up on Naruto, at least.

------

Gaara and Lee appeared to be engaged in a staring contest, Chouji thought. He mentioned this to Shikamaru, who opened one bleary eye to stare at them for a long moment.

"No, they're just sizing up a separate species," he muttered. Chouji frowned. Shikamaru made no sense sometimes.

"Should we be keeping a better eye on Ino-chan?" he asked after a moment. "That Sand girl is there."

Shikamaru made a negative noise. "She's getting drunk, too, isn't she? By the end of the night, Tenten will be the only sober one."

Chouji munched another cracker. "What about – us?" he asked between chews.

"Yeah. Us. Pass me that glass, will you?"

--------------

Sasuke and Neji had removed themselves from the dance floor, taken several glasses of punch on a makeshift tray and made their way to their previous secluded corner, hoping to get thoroughly shattered before their systems burned the alcohol up.

Neji assured him that it was possible with something this lethal. Sasuke had been dubious at first, but now, four glasses in, he revised his decision. It seemed to be working.

"So, have we... like... danced enough?"

"I don't know," Neji frowned. "I have. I think. Unless Gai-sensei changed the rules."

"Maybe you should ask someone."

"Who would know? Our mission's dis- diff... Not like yours."

Sasuke stared at him for a moment. "Um," he said, sure there was something wrong with that. He grinned as he figured it out, triumphantly mentioning, "but your team mates will know. See – there's Ten... Tenten?"

"So there is. Her lap's full of Ino. How did that happen, do you think?" Neji asked, cocking his head so he could see Ino better. Either that, or her was looking up her skirt.

"Maybe she fell," was the best Sasuke could do.

"And what, she couldn't be bothered getting up?"

Sasuke snorted, acknowledging the unlikeliness of that happening. He turned his head as well, taking a look up Ino's skirt and wondering what the appeal was supposed to be.

Nope. Nothing. Lots of skin, a bit of lace. He yawned.

"Here," Neji said. Glass clinked.

Sasuke looked up. Another glass. Gee, Neji was nice. "Thanks," he took it and drank it down fast, ignoring the burn. Mmm, punchy sweetness, alcohol dizziness. Being smashed was fun. It was good that Neji was enjoying it with him, even if he was giving him an odd look. Sasuke felt his face heat, wondering what kind of obvious social _faux pas _his isolation had brought upon him now, and looked anywhere for a distraction.

"Hey," he said after a moment. Neji's eyeballs rolled back up his neck and onto his face. "Does Anko have her tongue – never mind. Wait – Is Jiraiya _cracking on_ to your _cousin_?"

Had one been outside, one might have heard the rolling of thunder over the night-quiet village of the Leaf.

Of course, inside, Tenten's playlist was on repeat.

------------

Tsunade had arrived. She, at least, had made some effort towards the dress code. She looked good in black and she knew it - obviously. The neckline plunged, the hemline slit to her hip. Either she'd borrowed the giant, sparkling set of rocks around her neck from someone, or she'd finally won something. Iruka was betting on the former.

She was currently engaged in a heated argument with Anko which had started, aptly enough, with a comment on her generally inebriated state.

The males had backed away as soon as the feminine ego got involved.

"I can out drink you ANY DAY, you filthy old HAG!"

Iruka could have slapped himself. Anko was making waves, weaving on her heels as she tried valiantly to stalk towards Hokage-sama.

Tsunade's loud, angry answer was cut short when gravity finally won the battle and Anko tripped into her. Tsunade caught her under the arms in surprise, shifting her centre of gravity accordingly. Anko dangled in a truly undignified manner, but she seemed enraptured by something only she could see.

There was a short pause during which Jiraiya's inspiration-radar went off.

Anko blinked once, blinked twice. Tsunade frowned, wondering what the hell the woman was transfixed with.

Anko leaned forward and licked a long line up Tsunade's cleavage.

Tsunade dropped her with a shriek. Jiraiya could be heard commenting to Naruto and Kiba, his new pupils in the art of being a total pervert, and, by extension, Hinata, that he wished _he_ could get close enough to do that. Tsunade's right ear twitched.

She turned towards Jiraiya's voice, ready to beat the testosterone out of him, but was brought back to the catalyst of his unfortunate situation with the vague, drunken comment,

"Those're... real?"

There was a long pause, during which most of the males and not a few of the females gawked for a better look. Anko reached forward and prodded one of Tsunade's breasts experimentally, jumping back like a startled cat when it wobbled at her.

Jiraiya could be heard lamenting that he'd never gotten away with that in a conversation with his ex-team mate, either.

Tsunade, sporting a brilliant shade of magenta, had turned to challenge him to a fight to the bitter, bitter end when Anko seemed to remember what they'd been talking about.

"Oh, yeah. ANYWAY! I reckon I could drink twice – no THREE TIMES as much as _you_!" she hollered, pointing dramatically at the fifth Hokage. The effect was ruined a little by the way she swayed and the fact that her pointed finger was prodding Tsunade's much-discussed chest.

Tsunade, dearly wishing to blow her up and be done with it, bared her teeth, "You're on!"

----------

"Aw, shit. I always thought they were another part of the illusion," Jiraiya grumbled. "I owe Orochimaru a drink."

"O... Orochimaru?" Hinata asked hesitantly. Naruto jumped, whipping around to see her standing, hesitant, a little way off.

Jiraiya gave her a long, thorough once-over. She blushed wildly and took a step back.

"Oh, no, come on over, Hyuuga-san," he said with a grin. Shyly, Hinata complied, settling herself down in between Naruto and Kiba, sure that one of them, at least, would keep her safe. "Orochimaru-kun and I have a long-standing bet that Tsunade uses illusions to, ah," he coughed, then made a two-handed gesture, indicating chest height.

Naruto chuckled, although she called it that just to preserve his debatable masculinity. On a female, it would probably have been a giggle.

The gesture confused Hinata for a moment before she realised that he was depicting an overlarge – even by Hokage-sama's standards – set of female breasts. She blushed brighter.

"Oh, er... um... I – I see?" she hesitated.

Jiraiya cackled loudly, then returned to his slide-show of life-sized posters. Up close, Hinata could see that there _were_ instructions on them, albeit very... interesting... lewd... downright obscene, actually... instructions. She swallowed.

Wait, wasn't that background the women's baths? Vowing never to bathe outside the Hyuuga complex, or, at least, never without using the _byakugan_ the whole time, she inched closer to Kiba, and closer to familiarity.

Leaning against the walls of his corner, Shino shook his head sadly.

-------

Okay, that's that chapter. Thank you for all your kind reviews. If you would like me to reply, please say so, because I've decided that replying inside the story is kind of tacky. I'll e-mail you.

Also, if you think this is meandering along too slowly (I kind of feel as though it is, but I'm having too much fun writing it), tell me and I will make efforts to either update more or condense things.


	14. The Eyebrow Thing

Flames entertain me. Feel free to respond negatively, but I'd prefer it if you'd offer something constructive, rather than, "you write yaoi, fuck you, bitch". Honestly, doesn't anybody else live in a country where discrimination is illegal (not punishable, really, but still illegal)?

I guess not. On that note, I might point out that the summary of this story now contains the words "shounen ai" and "shoujo ai". Please don't be scared off. Please?

On with the fic. Please ignore my foul mood.

------------

Hinata was learning what men thought of women and sex (which they rarely thought of separately, she realised, inching away from her once-familiar team mate) and it was not pretty. In fact, it was even worse than her mother had told her.

Jiraiya didn't so much seem to be leading the boys astray as making them aware that they were not the only ones thinking totally perverse thoughts every second of every day and that they really shouldn't repress it. Repression, in Hinata's eyes, was a good thing. The Hyuuga clan had a tendency towards the conservative, the traditional and the anti-confrontational, which was a part of the reason her cousin was so totally ostracized – he was a left-wing political extremist, as far as most of their clan was concerned. Hinata, while of the anti-confrontational, conservative bent herself, could see that her cousin did have something of a point, but this… "sexual freedom," was a little radical for her.

Perhaps she should leave.

But wouldn't that be very rude to Jiraiya-san, who was obviously not finished speaking? And he was definitely giving _her_ his attention, shouldn't she offer the same to him? It was only polite, after all.

As she tuned in, she quickly tuned back out. Oh, no, she blushed. She couldn't deal with listening to _that_. It was so… so… _rude_. She wanted to leave. Her curiosity had gotten her into trouble again. She frowned, trying to think of a polite way to leave their small group, preferably with as little interruption to Jiraiya's highly educational teachings as possible.

She _did_ wish he'd glance up to her face occasionally, though – even though his appreciation of the black-on-black pattern of her neckline was very, er, flattering.

----------------------

"Did he die?" Tenten asked, enraptured by this latest of Temari's retellings. The mission had been completed over a year ago, which was as long as confidentiality lasted in anything below A-rank. This one was particularly good, since it was filled with personal vindication. Tenten suspected that parts of it were fabricated for the amusement of her audience, but Temari's stories were well-told and humorous, so she didn't nitpick.

"Well, yeah, eventually," Temari nodded, "I mean, nobody got out of the house, and he wasn't about to, what? Stuff his intestines back in his stomach, pull the kunai out and make a run for it?" she laughed throatily. Ino echoed her in a drunken, flighty kind of way.

Tenten giggled, more than a little tipsy herself. They'd migrated towards the punch. Or, perhaps, the punch had migrated towards them. Whatever. Either way, Ino was now settled face-to-face on her lap with her head buried into her neck, giggling hysterically at inappropriate moments but otherwise remaining sleepily silent.

Temari had found another seat and settled almost perpendicular to them. The spiked punch was flowing. And flowing. And flowing.

"It's good to hear that you got your own back and all, but if that had happened to me, I'd have sworn off men for the rest of my _life_," Tenten declared.

Temari shrugged.

"Nrrf," said Ino. Tenten removed her hair from her mouth.

"I wanna swear off men. Evil bassards," she mumbled.

Tenten raised an eyebrow. "What about Sasuke?"

"He's flirting with Nij… Nel… your team mate," Ino said with a pout.

Both Tenten and Temari looked back across the room. Sasuke and Neji appeared to be getting drunk. Very, very drunk. It looked not dissimilar to a recipe for utter chaos. She cocked her head, wondering if Ino was right.

As she watched, Neji made an expressive gesture with his glass, sloshing almost half of its contents over his companion's hand. Sasuke didn't seem to notice, but offered him a wry smile, replying. Neji laughed.

"Huh," Temari said.

"Who'd have thought?" Tenten muttered, irritated that she hadn't thought of getting Neji drunk before hand. Considering the other possible ill-effects of getting someone drunk, she twisted around – much to Ino's highly vocal, if non-verbal, disgust – to get a look at Lee. No broken furniture. Good.

Wait.

"Um, Temari-chan?"

"Hai!" the blond crowed, turning away from Sasuke and Neji. She was blushing slightly.

"Should we be letting Gaara get that close to Lee?"

"Eh? Oh, don't worry. He hasn't killed anyone all week! Well, except that border guard. And that fisherman. And… oh, wait, there was that guy with the cockatoos… but it's been a really good week for him. As long as your friend doesn't say anything too stupid, he'll be fine!"

Tenten swallowed. "I see," she mumbled.

Temari frowned as her brother mouthed something questioning to her, paused for a long moment, and then began rolling on the floor, laughing her arse off.

-----------

"Wow," Lee said giddily, needing nothing in the way of alcohol to be just as high as the rest of the room, "you don't sleep _at all_?"

"Not unless I really feel like I need to validate my existence by killing a few hundred people."

"Don't you get… tired?"

Gaara gave the suspiciously green-clad boy a long look. "Yes,"

"So how do you rest?"

"I meditate. Sometimes. Other times He won't shut up, though."

"Oh,"

"Yeah."

"What strength of character you display, Gaara of the Desert!" Lee rhapsodized suddenly. Gaara raised the space where an eyebrow might have been.

"Really."

"Of course," he stood, raising one solemn fist, "to stand so firm in the face of sleep deprivation and excessive chakra-use and fight against your inner demons with all of your youthful integrity so as to save the lives of others! How beautiful!"

Seeing his older sister glance over at him, Gaara frowned, then mouthed, "_Youthful integrity?"_

She frowned for a moment, then smiled, then began laughing loudly.

"Gaara of the Desert! You have inspired me beyond measure!"

"Oh, good. Do I get a prize?" the redhead asked dryly. Really. This kid was _too_ entertaining.

"I feel as though I must, to further my understanding of you," the green boy spoke over him or didn't hear, "request that I have this dance with you,"

Gaara waited for that to process. "Eh?"

----------

Ah, I hope you liked this chapter. Please review to tell me your thoughts. I don't even mind if they're negative and non-constructive.

--------------------

If you wish for your review to be taken seriously by the author:

Do not make up nonsensical religious jargon, particularly not nonsensical religious jargon that doesn't apply to the writer of the fiction.

Do not misspell simple words, like "committee". I will not take you seriously. I probably won't take you seriously, anyway, but that isn't the point.

Do not seek to discriminate against something in English whilst using the Japanese word therefore, particularly if you are trying to sound official.

Make sure that the author of the piece of fiction lives in the country affected by the "laws" that you're laying down.

What the Hell does "dese" mean?

At least TRY for basic grammar functions. If you live in the USA, shouldn't you be able to speak English? I mean, I'm in the opposite hemisphere from England, but I can.

I hope this doesn't make me seem intolerant. I would love to receive more highly entertaining flames. Please, flame away.


	15. Mush

Hinata shifted away from the perverted hermit's grasp, hoping not to look too uncomfortable. He was using her as a three-dimensional model. He suggested once or twice already that it would be better if she wasn't quite do clothed, but she ignored him, hoping he'd think she didn't understand the hint.

This had been a really bad idea. When she'd always wanted Naruto to look at her, she hadn't really wanted him to look at her _like that_.

It was… unseemly.

-------

"Does Neji look kind of upset to you, Shika?" Chouji asked.

Shikamaru raised his head from the tabletop.

"He looks drunk."

"Yeah, but does he look kind of… less blank than usual, in a bad way?"

Shikamaru squinted. "Like he's about to have an aneurysm, you mean?"

"…yeah, kind of."

"Yeah," Shikamaru tried to follow his gaze, but was ultimately unsure as to if the Hyuuga genius was staring at Sasuke's increasingly wild gestures or at his cousin, who was being held up as a sex object by Jiraiya.

Whatever.

"Shikamaru,"

"Nrrf?"

"Who are you going to dance with?"

"Dance with?"

"For the mission, you know?"

"Oh. You," Shikamaru replied, letting his head sink back down to doze off to the quiet munching noises of Chouji.

-----------

"FIFTEEN!" Anko shrieked.

"Sixteen," Tsunade said. Genma poured, wondering why he'd bothered making Anko come. Iruka was hovering over the pair, commenting every now and again about how horribly an example they were setting for the children.

"SIXTEEN! BEAT THAT!"

"Seventeen," Tsunade replied, downing another.

"SEVENTEEN!"

"Eight – eighteen,"

"Hah! You're SLURRING ALREADY!"

"You haven't have your eighteenth yet, Anko-chan. Have you given up?"

"EIGHTEEN, BITCH!"

Kurenai watched on, bemused. Asuma lit up another cigarette, wondering if they'd manage to knock each other out before the night was through. He knew Anko, and he knew she could drink him under the table. He also knew that Tsunade had enough practise at drinking herself insensible to match both of them combined.

Kakashi was leaning over the railing, camera in hand, and wondering whether or not any of the other jounin would realise that the punch had been spiked. He'd have to talk to Naruto about his poisoning skills – he'd gone way overboard on this occasion.

----------

"Sasuke-kun," Neji mumbled. "he's molesting my cousin."

"Yeah," Sasuke agreed. "He's molesting your cousin. Which means that he's molesting my fourteenth cousin once removed, right?"

"Fifteenth. I'm your fourteenth cousin once removed."

Sasuke frowned. "But she's your cousin, Neji."

"Oh, yeah," Neji agreed after a moment. "Wow, you have two fourteenth cousins once removed."

"Can I just call you cousin, then?"

"No way," Neji shook his head. Sasuke frowned prettily.

"Why not?"

"Because it's stupid," Neji said. Sasuke nodded slowly, as though all the answers to his universe had just been answered.

"Well, Neji's easier to pronounce, anyway," he agreed, brushing one of his bangs out of the way. "We can't have had that much to drink already, can we?" Sasuke said, looking at the glasses left.

"How many do you see?"

"Four?"

"Then you've definitely had that much to drink,"

"Why?"

"There's two," Neji pointed out, reaching forward to pick them up. His four arms made Sasuke slightly ill, which gave him an odd idea.

"Your eyes are red," Neji said.

Sasuke made a wordless sound of agreement, moving his head from side to side slowly. Drunken sharingan vision was trippy.

"Sharingan," he agreed, rocking his head backwards and forth. Neji's trail of movement blurred, as did his highly unstable chakra flow. Sasuke smiled, a cute, drunken little smile.

"Neji?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever been kissed?"

"Eh?"

--------

"Gaara-kun, you dance splendidly!" Lee declared delightedly. He was sorry he hadn't asked Gai-sensei to dance with him, but he knew that the great man himself would approve of his forming new friends out of old enemies – and completing his mission at the same time! Ah, the accomplishments that could be made with the delicate combination of youth and ingenuity.

"Just shut up," Gaara hissed, blushing brightly. He was not a graceful dancer. He did not often have occasion to practise dancing, and, even if he did, he did not often avail himself of the opportunity unless forced.

"But why, Gaara-kun?" he asked, all wide eyes and innocence. Gaara glared, wishing he had eyebrows with which to express himself.

"Because it's annoying," he pointed out.

Lee's eyes grew wide and super deformed, glittering upsettingly with unshed tears. "But... but I want to..."

Gaara's brain turned to mush.


	16. dRunken dePartiNg

I'm ahead of schedule for nanowrimo, so I post.

-----------------

"Well?" Sasuke asked.

"What's the point?" Neji responded.

Sasuke shrugged, "To try it."

Neji shook his head.

"You should try it."

"Why?" Neji gave Sasuke a look.

Sasuke shrugged. "Dunno. Seems like the sort of thing people should try," he said.

"Oh," Neji replied.

"Yeah. You wanna go?"

"Where?"

Sasuke shrugged and made a clumsy gesture to the room and its inhabitants. "Somewhere else," he said.

"Oh. Yeah, okay," Neji agreed, nodding sagely. "We should take some punch," he suggested.

"Nah, we can get booze somewhere else."

"Underage," Neji pointed out.

Sasuke shrugged. "There's gotta be something worth drinking in my cellar," he pointed out. "'Ss not like I've... gone there in five years."

"Oh," Neji said at length, having figured out the complicated logic attached to the sentence. "Yeah. Let's go there."

They got to their feet and made all efforts to look as though they weren't inebriated as they made their way to the doors, even if a majority of people were standing around a little card table in the corner...

------------

"THIRTY!" Anko screamed, red in the face. Although, that may have been purely from the astonishing amount of alcohol she'd imbibed in the past thirty-eight and a half minutes.

"Nah, fifty says Tsunade will win," Asuma disagreed.

"I'll take that," Genma nodded, shaking on it. "But Anko can drink Shikato under the table," he added. Asuma lit a cigarette, sure that anybody who would scold him for it would have already separated the drink-to-the-death-match going on between Anko and Tsunade.

"THIRTY ONE!" the blond yelled before slumping her head back onto her arm.

"Fuckin'... bi... tch..." Anko trailed off in expletives as Kakashi, forever willing to encourage good habits, poured the next round. "THIRTY ONE!" she shrieked, slamming it down immediately, slapping the glass back on the table and struggling to her feet. She swayed, stepping to the side in an unbalanced movement and clutching the side of the table in reflex as the ground tried to rush her before slapping her palm onto the tabletop, recognising the more important things at hand.

She leant on that arm for balance, somehow making it look casual, even in her total lack of... everything. Tsunade glared up at her, frowning when she went swirly for a moment.

"Um, maybe we should take them home," Iruka suggested hesitantly, recognising a recipe for disaster. Kakashi waved his worries off.

"Nah, they're fine. You remember the Christmas party, right?"

"No," Iruka admitted dryly, "I don't. And that's the point."

Kakashi ignored him, pouring another round.

Tsunade stood up, sneering messily and gulping her next shot. Anko snarled, inching closer to her nemesis, no longer looking like she was leaning on the table casually, but more as though she were damn near clinging to it for life.

"So..." Iruka sighed, resigning himself to the worst, "What happened at the Christmas party?"

"I don't remember either," Kakashi said cheerfully, and Iruka facefaulted, "but Jiraiya took the most _interesting_ pictures," he added thoughtfully. His right eye closed in a happy grin.

"Oh, gods," Iruka mumbled, hiding his head in his hands. Kakashi patted his shoulder consolingly before he returned to his duty.

-----------------

Gaara was somewhat surprised that Lee could dance at all, frankly. The green-spandex-and-fuzzy-legwarmers image didn't really fit what someone who could dance should look like, but he expected that taijutsu had allowed the boy with the eyebrows to learn something of rhythm.

"Are we about done?" he asked anyway, unsure as to his own abilities more than anything else. Lee might have given him the potential to be WaFFy, but he wasn't about to indulge it in public, no matter what he was sure the green-clad boy would prefer.

"Oh... er, sure, Gaara-kun," Lee agreed, obviously disappointed but endeavouring not to show it. "I've completed my mission for tonight," he declared happily. "I know that Gai-sensei must be proud of me!"

"If he weren't laying bets on how fast your Hokage will drink herself unconscious," Gaara agreed, petting the taller boy on the shoulder consolingly – he would have petted him on the head, but he wasn't sure what was making it so very... shiny.

"Oh," Lee murmured, glancing over at his esteemed teacher, who was, in fact, opposing Kakashi's bet on Anko to win. "Well," he shrugged, trying to rationalize his participation in such a pastime, "I'm sure his bet will be the best," he said.

"Aa," Gaara murmured, unsure of how better to reply to such... _blind_ faith. It was a good thing he liked him, he reflected, wondering at the burning optimism of youth, because if he didn't, he'd probably have killed him.

-------------

"Sasuke's leaving," Tenten pointed out. Ino continued gazing at her fascinating countenance with drunken adoration. "With Neji," she added. Ino kept staring.

"Drunk," Tenten added.

Ino blinked. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?" she mumbled, cuddling closer.

Temari looked over at them.

"Pity," she said. "Always knew he was a fruit, though." she added.

"Yes, you are," Tenten replied to Ino, partly wishing she could stand so Tenten herself could complete her night's mission. "Yeah... I hadn't had Neji picked though," she noted to Temari, a little wistfully.

Temari grinned at her. "You could always follow them and see what they get up to, you know," she suggested with a raised eyebrow.

Tenten frowned. "... only if you dance with me," she said very quickly.

"... what?"

"It's for the _mission,_" Tenten hissed.

Temari's smile was lopsided. "Sure it is," she said blandly.

Tenten blushed, rolled Ino off her lap with a thump, and stood to take her other blonde's hand. "Make it quick, though," she added. "We don't want to lose them."

--------------------

"Do you think she's comatose, yet?" Chouji asked.

Shikamaru didn't reply. Chouji looked down at him.

"Shika?"

Shikamaru snored. Chouji prodded him.

Prod. Prod.

"Nrrf?"

"Is she comatose yet?"

He looked up, squinting sleepily at the floor. "...she is lying on the floor," he agreed. "and Asuma is distracted. But... if we left, who would offer witty repartee to our readers?"

Chouji thought about it. "I don't know," he admitted. "Maybe Shino, if he spoke."

"Yeah..." Shikamaru agreed. "And Sakura, if she hadn't disappeared around... shit, when Neji and Sasuke crept off to the bathroom?"

"No, look, she's helping Ino up... which means she wasn't comatose, anyway," Chouji said with a sigh.

"Damn," Shikamaru muttered.

---------------

"Ino, have you seen Sasuke?" faced with the ultimate defeat of loosing track of him, Sakura had done the unthinkable and asked her arch-rival for information on his whereabouts.

Ino looked sad, sad, sad... both in countenance and appearance. Her dress was hiked up a little further than it should have been, Tenten was wearing the majority of her makeup on her cute little skirt, and her hair was in total disarray.

"Eh?" she asked.

Feeling that her source of information might already have been a little dubious, Sakura offered her a hand up and repeated her question, "Do you know where Sasuke is?"

"If I... did know... which – which I _do_, why would I share my inmor... in... why should I tell you?"

"You know?" Sakura squealed. "That's great! Now, where?"

"Hmm... where who?"

"SASUKE!"

"Oh. He left,"

"Oh, no," Sakura said softly, lamenting the short time she'd had to prove to him that she was absolutely the most perfect person for him.

"With Neji," Ino added.

"Eh?" Sakura said, wondering what the drunk girl was getting at and sincerely hoping that Lee hadn't been anywhere near the punch. She glanced in his direction – he was easy enough to find, a little greed blur on her peripheral. He and – she did a double take – _Gaara_ were sitting, leaning against the hangings, and apparently discussing the deathmatch between Anko and Tsunade.

"Drunk,"

Sakura turned back to the conversation at hand. "Drunk? That's great! Wait... drunk, with Neji?" she asked.

"Yeah," Ino agreed sadly. "Tenten was depressed, too, but now she's dancing with Temari-chan, so it's okay."

Sakura's abused brain gave up. She slumped down beside her friend, who decided it was a good idea and settled to the ground, also, even though there were two perfectly serviceable chairs in attendance.

--------------------

Comments welcome. Love reviewers.


	17. And Now We Get Down To Business

**See first chapter for disclaimer. **

_**A/N: **_

_Look, guys: Nanowrimo finished on the thirtieth, and here, on the second, you have the next chapter of Total Idiocy, as promised._

_Oh, no. I just made a deadline, didn't I? I'll never be a real author now!_

_I know this chapter jumps forward in time a bit, but, hey, you didn't really want to hear about Tenten and Temari dancing and searching out in the woods for their stalkees, did you? I didn't think so. Besides which, I couldn't be bothered writing it. _

For You, With Love,

Yasi

--------------------------------------

The lips were cool and a bit chapped and, since Neji didn't subscribe to the idea that a particular person's mouth could taste like sunlight or roses or anything equally as fanciful and that, in his (admittedly limited) experience, one's mouth usually tasted like whatever had been in it last, Sasuke's mouth tasted astonishingly of punch and alcohol burn.

But Sasuke's mouth, even tasting of punch and alcohol was a wondrous thing, and Neji felt the real world slip quietly away out the back door of his mind.

"Oh. My. God." Tenten muttered from her position in the treetops. It was taking a risk, sure, but she was pretty sure that, even if Neji _did_ see her with his byakugan (and this was looking mighty unlikely), that he'd not actually be able to _tell_ that he'd seen a person and not merely an oddly-shaped, chakra-filled shadow. Because, you know, trees have chakra, too.

Looking down at the two, it seemed as though they'd fallen into a ditch at the side of the path – there was a neon-orange, hazard-striped roadwork sign by the way which they'd apparently missed.

She cursed her damnable sensei for making her dance. She'd have paid good money to see Neji trip over. Even better money if Kakashi and his camera had come along as well.

Temari smirked. "I told you he was gay."

"That didn't mean I _believed_ you. You might have told me he was some demented sort of tooth fairy, too."

"Now remove "tooth" from that sentence," Temari suggested blandly. Tenten snorted derisively, privately finding the joke kind of funny, but unwilling to laugh at Neji. After all, he might find out.

After much sucking and biting and even more cool writhing and close darkness, Sasuke pulled back, much to Neji's distaste, and grinned at him. Bemused, sparkly, intense in a delightfully dizzy way.

"We were going to my place, weren't we?" he asked blankly. "Why?"

Tenten pressed her hand to her nose in hopes of stemming the blood flow and frantically quelling the desire to squeal and scream, _I know, I know, pick mee!_

Beside her, Temari made a noise which is best described by the word "snarf". Tenten shushed her violently, waving her hands in the air like a demented octopus. Neji looked up for a minute, blinking.

Both girls froze, tense, ready to run from the drunken rampage of two of the most dangerous genin in Konoha.

But Neji shook his head like a confused animal and turned back to Sasuke. "I dunno," he said. "Do you really want to?"

Sasuke seemed to consider that for a while. Tenten and Temari waited tensely, wondering if they were going to have to find some way to sneak into the Uchiha mansion – a notoriously tough feat, Tenten knew.

They waited some more. Sasuke began to play with Neji's hair, which seemed to make both of them happy.

Eventually, however, Neji asked, "Sasuke?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you?"

"I'm sorry, what was the question again?" Sasuke asked innocently.

Up in her tree, Tenten facefaulted, relying on Temari to catch her.

------------------------------

Kakashi watched on with interest, thanking any god that might have been listening for digital cameras and switching disks.

Anko and Tsunade were having a fistfight, thankfully too drunk to mould chakra. What had before been two separate women appeared to have degenerated into a mass of long, sleek limbs and blonde hair.

It was kind of hard to tell if they were fighting or doing something _entirely_ different, what with the incoherent screaming and shouting, flailing limbs and flushed faces. The majority of the jounin had come in hopes of seeing them get it on and to egg them on, the minority being Gai, who had simply come to argue with Kakashi over who was going to win.

Jiraiya had even ventured out from his Hentai-teaching corner of doom, bringing Naruto, Kiba and Hinata with him. It was probably a good thing to get Naruto, Kiba and Jiraiya out of the way, Kakashi thought to himself, snapping away, but he didn't know _what_ Hinata was doing in their company. He hoped her father didn't find out.

Kakashi blinked, looking back to the fistfight that had been happening a moment before. He began snapping photographs in earnest. He was pretty sure that most fistfights didn't involve the use of the lips.

But then, he'd have to ask Gai, who was definitely the expert on taijutsu. Later. When he'd run out of disk space, maybe.

------------------------------

Hinata blushed, covering her eyes. Except that she was peeking, but that wasn't the point. It was the principle of the thing. Anko-sempai's lips appeared to be sealed to Tsunade-sama's ... chest region. She chewed her bottom lip.

"Interesting, huh?" someone asked next to her. An overfull glass of punch was shoved under her nose. Hinata jumped, squeaked and turned, forgetting that she could already see out the back of her head.

She put one hand to her chest, feeling the pulse hammering. "Kurenai-sensei," she gasped, swallowing convulsively. "I, um – I-!"

"Drink up. You'll feel better," Kurenai suggested. Hinata frowned at the punch.

"But... it's alcoholic, isn't it?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," Kurenai agreed. "Lethally so." She glanced at Jiraiya, Naruto and Kiba, whose eyes seemed glued to the "action" going on by the rickety card table.

Hinata frowned. Good girls didn't drink alcohol. Alcohol was for streetwalkers, not good girls like her, who intended to make something of themselves. She would be firm about this. She would _not_ drink alcohol, because she _knew_ it was wrong.

Except, Kurenai-sensei didn't seem to think there was a problem with it. And father was a little bit... misguided... on some things, wasn't he? She frowned.

"Go on," Kurenai said, petting her head. "It won't hurt you," she said, gesturing with the cup for emphasis. She didn't seem to notice when the contents sloshed and dribbled down the side a bit.

Hinata swallowed. Well, what was the harm in just one glass? A little voice in the back of her mind suggested dryly that "just one glass" of, say, hemlock, would cause a _lot_ of harm, and that she didn't know exactly what effect alcohol would have on her body, mostly because anyone who could have told her didn't remember, which was even _more_ reason to trust her father on the matter, even if he did occasionally indulge in...

She took a deep breath, her own boldness making her dizzy, and accepted the cup, drinking and drowning out the voice of doubt – or was that reason? – in the back of her mind.

Kurenai petted her head again. "Good girl," she said. "It's good, huh?"

Hinata nodded. It hurt her throat, made her eyes sting and brought her temperature up. She frowned, remembering how she'd heard that the effects were worse when one didn't weigh much. She looked down at herself, through her pretty black dress, wondering abstractedly if she'd begin to sprout extra appendages.

Don't be stupid, she told herself. It won't kill you. Kurenai-sensei said it wouldn't even hurt.

-------------------------------

Oh, dear. Hinata. Drunk. I think she's going to go and do something liberating. Like sleeping with her teacher, maybe.

That sounds good to me.

Yeah. I think I'll do that.

Comments and criticism are good, but be warned, my Inner Editor has been defenestrated (the second-story fall didn't kill her, so me and my muse went down, dismembered, burned and ate her), so I'm likely to respond with scorn, ridicule and a variety of twenty-five cent words to flamers.

_On a totally unrelated note, how many of you would visit and comment on my Livejournal if I was to post smut from these pairings there? Or any other pairings that you'd care to suggest, really, unless it has candy-floss hair and red eyes. _

_I'd really like to get in some practise at writing smut, but how am I supposed to know what I'm doing wrong without useful feedback?_


	18. Like a Very WaFFy Mallet

See first chapter for disclaimer.

Welcome to another installment of Total Idiocy, in which the fourth wall starts to tremble alarmingly and the idiot fangirl author expresses her caffeine-deprived-ness in the form of random GaaraLee abruptness and a pairing that will pop out and glomp you like a surprised goldfish. No, that doesn't make sense, but if you can _make_ it make sense, um… goody for you.

Yeah.

---------------

"What are they going to do with the bets now?" Lee asked worriedly.

Gaara glanced back over at the make-out session being conducted next to the rickety old card table. It had been fueling what could loosely be termed "conversation" for the past fifteen minutes. Of course, in order for this "conversation" to occur, Gaara had had to imbibe several cups of punch. Fourteen, in fact, since that pesky demonic entity squirming around inside him made his metabolism too fast to get really drunk.

This inability to become _really_ _inebriated_ was probably a _very good thing_ for Lee, when you think about it. Particularly in light of the fact that Gaara was quite capable of keeping himself moderately fuzzy, and would thusly have fairly poor judgment.

Barring the fact that alcohol is the age-old and unoriginal way for noob fangirls to make characters act out of character in order to pair them up, the conversation was progressing in a strictly characteristic manner. Gaara found himself constantly sporting a deadpan expression, mostly to cover up the pure "_wtf_?" that lay behind it, and Lee realized that the person sitting beside him and cuddling the gourd was possibly the most wonderful creature on the planet, next to Gai-sensei.

It must be said, however, that the reason for Lee thinking this may be because nobody else had ever humored him without condescension. After all, it wasn't as though his team didn't all think he was crazy, and it wasn't as though he had any other friends. In fact, he reflected abruptly, it might just be that the mildly-tipsy and frequently super-deformed redhead was actually a better conversationalist than his Dear Sweet Sakura-san.

"I believe that the one that passes out last will still win," Gaara responded after that lengthy pause. He unfastened one arm from around his gourd and took another large gulp of punch. Since he was definitely the one that needed it most, he'd confiscated the bowl. Punch was his friend.

Lee frowned. "That could be unfair, though," he pointed out. "And then the bet would be moot, since winning would take no skill. And no honorable man would allow something so blatantly unfair to go through," he finished with a nod.

Gaara blinked. He _knew_ that there was something wrong with that logic. He just couldn't quite figure out where the mistake had been made. He hugged his gourd closer, murmuring, "Gambling isn't really about skill, you know."

Lee's eyes widened. "Gaara-san," he said, looking at the redhead as though he was sprouting B-grade hentai-flick tentacles, "of _course_gambling is about skill. After all, if she had skill at it, wouldn't Hokage-sama be in less debt? I refuse to believe that something so popular can truly require no skill at all!"

"Okay," Gaara said. Lee didn't have a clue. Although it seemed to be an increasingly large part of his charm.

Lee frowned. Gaara just wasn't getting it. Although, he was sort of cute like that. Except that Lee couldn't possibly be unfaithful to his Dear Sweet Sakura-san. It was unthinkable. It did not matter if she would be willing to take certain other boys over him at the drop of a hat – even _Neji_, to his eternal shame, seemed to be preferred – it merely mattered that he would take _nobody_ over her. He was sure that his nobility, strength of will and devotion would win her over eventually.

Gaara was watching him as though he could see the gears turning in his head, and as though they made him worry.

"I am a very devoted admirer," Lee blurted.

Gaara paused, then blinked slowly. "Um… of me?" he asked.

"Of course," Lee agreed blithely, nodding. Then he paused. "No, wait that's not –"

But, alas, it was too late. Gaara had already reached over and thwacked him into unconsciousness. Considering the state of things, it wasn't surprising when nobody important noticed him carrying an unconscious Lee over his shoulder and out the doors.

-------------------

Further up on the mezzanine level, Kankurou and Shikamaru were engaged in a heated competition. It was scorching, it was exciting, and Chouji was enjoying refereeing it with all of his heart. But he just _had _to mention it when he saw Gaara cosh Lee over the head, toss him over one shoulder and leave.

"Kankurou," Chouji snarfed, "isn't that your brother?"

Kankurou glanced up from his staring match with Shikamaru and towards the door, where his little brother was, indeed, leaving with an unconscious body slung over his shoulders.

"I win," Shikamaru pointed out. Kankurou shrugged.

"It wasn't that good a match, anyway," he commented. Shikamaru nodded, closing his abused eyes. They weren't used to staying open that long.

"Isn't that odd?" Chouji asked. "Is he going to hurt him?"

Kankurou glanced back towards the empty doorway. "Um… no," he lied. True, it _had_ been a while since Gaara had killed someone for no other reason than to prove that he had some control over his surroundings, but Knkurou didn't know about the whole alcohol-consumption thing. He and Temari had sort of gone out of their way to prevent Gaara getting drunk when they were bound to be the ones that had to deal with the aftermath.

Shikamaru cracked open one eye lazily and raised an eyebrow at him. Kankurou shrugged.

-------------------------

"Ino… Ino… Ino…"

"You know what?" Ino responded, perking up all of a sudden.

"What?" Sakura asked tiredly. It figured that the only response she was going to get would be in the form of a riddle. Damn Ino to hell. And damn Neji to hell, too. "Gimme that," she snapped, confiscating Ino's half-empty drink. She deserved it, after all.

"Meh," Ino muttered, blinking at Sakura's apparent ill-temper. "I'm going to go find Tenten and Temari. Heh," she added after a bemused moment. "Tenten and Temari, Tenten and Temari, Tenten and Temari, Tenten and Temari, Tenten and Temari... Oh, yeah. I'm gonna go find them."

And she stood up, wobbling like a jellyfish on a jelly-castle, and left. Sakura stared after her.

"Okay, whatever," she said, exhausted from the stupid drunk logic. She'd never really liked that girl.

She looked around. Who was sane?

Oh. Shino.

She made her way over to him and leant against the wall next to him. He eyed her (she thought) oddly.

"There's something in the drink, isn't there."

"Yes," she agreed, taking another long gulp.

Shino nodded. "I'm sure you'd never _usually_ talk to me."

Sakura shrugged. "Sometimes you have to make lemonade, or whatever."

Shino didn't say anything.

"It's a saying," she defended herself.

"Aa."

Pause.

"So, you like bugs, huh?"

----------------------

That's it for now.

I'm _exhausted_, you know. Failing year ten exams does that to you.

Um, please review, because I _really _need the feedback right now. And, hey, they make me want to write, which is good…. Right?


	19. Just Waiting to Be RAVAGED

See chapter one for the obligatory disclaimer.

Hi, guys. I didn't really mean to leave this for this long. I'm sorry.

That said, I'm not sure what I'm doing with this chapter since I'm sick and grouchy and confused and suchlike, so forgive me any lack of humour, ne?

Hinata really didn't know how it had happened.

Really.

One minute she'd been letting Kurenai lead her away from the confronting (yet strangely compelling) scene of Tsunade and Anko making out on the floor, accepting the second glass of punch on the way, and the next…

She was outside the compound, wandering through the slums with her teacher, who was grinning a drunken grin at her and balancing on the ledge of the gutter. She wasn't really supposed to have _left_, she recalled in a panic, except that if sensei was with her it was probably alright.

Right?

"Um, Kurenai-sensei," she started, hoping that the older woman would give her back her wrist sometime soon, since she wasn't sure she could keep up with her without tripping. "Is this… is this alright?"

"Yep!" Kurenai responded. "Well, no, because I wanted to see Kakashi's expression when my _evil_ plot comes to fruition," she paused to giggle at her bad impersonation of a stock-villain. Or maybe it was really Orochimaru. Hard to tell, sometimes. "But you definitely did well on your mission," she said, coming back to the topic at hand.

Her student looked out at her from under her bangs, unconsciously tugging her hand back so she could press her fingers together and blush shyly at her. Kurenai turned to get the full effect of the cuteness.

"R – really?" Hinata asked softly.

"Really," Kurenai responded, bending down to her level. She might have ruffled her hair, but she was caught up in the huge white eyes when Hinata's face broke out into a small, sweet smile.

She bowed quickly, hiding her face from Kurenai and almost falling over in the process, "Thank you!"

The older woman felt sort of like her brain was turning to mushy squishiness and dribbling out of her ears.

Lee blinked.

It took him a good three minutes to realize that he was halfway through being ravished.

Under a tree in the middle of an open clearing.

By Gaara, no less.

Whoa.

"Wait, WAIT!" he shouted, pressing Gaara away. The redhead looked a little irritated to find him conscious. Lee pushed this disturbing thought away.

"As much as I admire you and your SPARKLING personality, Gaara-san, I have to decline your offer," he said dramatically, pausing to press one hand to his forehead.

"…I was _offering_?" Gaara asked, batting the other hand away and leaning back down.

"Yes – but – AH! – no, stop, Gaara-san… I…" he blushed shyly, tugging his clothing back to his body. Gaara sat up – on top of him, Lee noticed dizzily – and glared flatly at him.

"What is it _now_?" he snapped.

"I… Gaara-san," Lee said, lowering his eyes and looking distinctly like the unwilling heroine in a poorly-directed hantai, "I… I'm saving myself for Sakura-chan," he explained very gently.

Gaara raised an eyebrow. "And where's this Sakura now?" he asked.

"Er… back at the dance hall, probably," Lee responded blinking.

"Ah," Gaara nodded, making to get up.

"Wait, where are you going?" Lee asked blankly. He hadn't actually _wanted_ to have sex with him, but he sort of… liked the redhead's presence…

"To kill her," Gaara responded easily, stalking off in what was presumably the direction of the hall.

"Eh?" Lee asked in something like shock, staggering to his feet and running after the redhead, tripping on the pants around his ankles. "Wait – you can't!"

"… Why not?" Gaara asked. "You can't "save yourself"," he snorted derisively to show what he thought of _that_ sentiment, "For somebody who's dead, can you?"

"But... I don't want you to kill Sakura-san, either," he said forlornly.

Gaara turned back around to eye him, the picture of pathetic dejection and confusion, naked with his pants and shoes tangled around his legs and apparently unaware of it. He looked like the most amusing kicked puppy _ever_.

"Well… If I _don't_ kill her… what do I get out of it?" he asked, raising the space where an eyebrow may once have potentially grown.

"You, you want…. The _huh_?"

"And I thought I was being obvious…." Gaara snarled, advancing at a run.

"That – that's not the – gaah! What - ?" Lee was on the ground again with the other boy atop him.

"No – _damnit_, I _told you_ to st – oh. Oh."

"What was that?"

"No, it's alright," Lee said breathily. After all, he was doing it for Sakura, right? Right. "Proceed."

"I thought that's what you said," Gaara agreed, leaning back down.

Shikamaru and Chouji had done the smart thing, mostly courtesy of Shikamaru's planning. They'd hung around and traded "wit" all night, then, when everybody was too drunk or too preoccupied with the people that _were_ too drunk to notice, they danced.

Kankuro even clapped for the beat, since the CD player had long since been knocked to the floor.

Shikamaru wasn't really a very good dancer. He was lazy, and he moved in the smallest steps he could get away with. Chouji was less so, but his movements were ungainly and strangely stilted.

It looked a little odd, but they both knew that the only person watching was Kankuro, who they doubted really cared anyway, so they danced together for longer than was really necessary – or, at least, until Shikamaru declared that they were definitely done for the night and that he wanted to go _home_ and _sleep_ because anything else right then would be _stupid_, despite the example being set for them by most – well, _all, _actually – of the older genin.

Chouji was a little disappointed that they had to stop dancing. Even though he'd trodden on Shikamaru's feet once or twice, it was good to be doing something together. They left together, since Chouji had decided to walk Shikamaru home.

Kankuro called them incurably retarded and went to find his siblings.

Okay. I'm done for this chapter. Very insipid, but I hope the barely-there ShikaChou WaFF made people's brains implode like a giraffe on crack.

Yeah.

Got two SACs tomorrow. Going to study.

Review if you can be bothered, yeah?


	20. So You like bugs?

Hi, guys. I've been so slack with my chapters on this thing lately. I sort of like to keep them over the 1000-word mark _without_ the author's notes, so, yeah… I've been slack.

But now I'm writing this instead of doing my history homework, a subject in which I have a SAC very soon…

I swear, nobody who writes fanficiton passes year 12. It is a rule.

---------------------------

"Ninja Beetle Chysomelidae. They destroy the being from the inside as larvae then begin to feast on the skin as they grow into adulthood."

Sakura was honestly fascinating. It was true; she _was_ a bookworm. She was a little drunk, too, but that wasn't the point. The thing was, Sakura actively enjoyed learning things. She just hadn't been aware that bugs could be quite so interesting.

"I see," she responded, encouraging Shino to continue and offering him her glass, which he stared at blankly for a moment. She assumed that this was intended as declining her offer, so she drew it back to her body. "How long does it usually take for the… what did you call them? – to become adults?"

"Ninja Chysomelidae. Not to be confused with its naturally-occurring counterpart. It can take a number of months for one to reach full adulthood. The beetle was originally adapted as a biological weapon."

Sakura nodded. "Cool," she said, taking another drink. There was a bug of some kind in her drink now, and, unperturbed, she caught it under her nail and handed it back to Shino, who raised one hand to take it from her. There were no motions wasted, and, even though he was speaking, it was in a soft, deep, monotonous kind of way. If she weren't listening so intently, it might put her to sleep.

As it was, it had already drowned out the rest of the commotion.

------------------------------

Neji was good with his hands.

Sasuke suspected it had something to do with his eyes, but he'd been unable to progress much with that logic in the past twenty minutes.

It might have something to do with the fact that he was actively trying not to think.

He usually had a bit of trouble with this concept, since not-thinking required one to think about not-thinking, thus ruining the whole idea.

Currently, he wasn't having much trouble with it.

Mostly because Neji was good with his hands.

His head cracked against the brick and that pretty little moment shattered.

"God_damnit_," he snarled, grabbing Neji's hair and tugging on it. "We can do _whatever you want_ when we get _home_ just as long as we _get there_," he snapped, starting off at a surprisingly fast pace.

Neji let himself be pulled.

"You really think they're ever going to get back at this pace?" Tenten asked from the nearby bushes.

"Maybe," Temari said dubiously. "As long as Hyuuga doesn't pull them into another random alleyway."

"Mmm. Never really had him picked as an alleyway kind of guy," the brunette admitted.

Temari shrugged. "Reckon they're far enough ahead?"

"They're so drunk that I don't think it matters."

"Touché."

----------------------------

"So, that's _not_ a form of taijutsu?" Kakashi asked carefully. Gai squinted at him like it was a trick question.

"…I do not know many people who would waste the tremendous effort required to get their tongue between someone's legs in order to attack them, but if such a thing does occur, it is outside of my range of knowledge, even though I continually seek to expand that range."

"Really?" Kakashi asked, his right eye curving up into a rather frighteningly cheerful curve, "You've never done that sort of taijutsu?" he said. "Because, really, it's quite common…"

"…does this happen a lot at your parties?" Iruka asked Genma.

"…That, or _that_?" Ganma asked, jerking his head in the direction of Tsunade and Anko, whom everybody except Jiraiya, his protégés, Kakashi and Gai had begun to politely ignore. They were pretty much a tangle of lithe white limbs and blonde hair and fishnet and happy noises by now, anyway.

"Um…" Iruka, blushing, looked between the groups.

"Take your time now," Genma somehow managed to yawn and smirk and keep the needle in his mouth at the same time. There were a number of people who were fascinated by his amazing oral dextrousness. Iruka didn't even notice.

"Either, actually," he mumbled finally, looking away from both embarrassing spectacles, inventing a whole new shade of magenta in the process.

"Mmm… Kakashi and Gai being idiots is pretty standard. Dunno that I've ever had Anko crack onto a girl before, though," he admitted, eyeing them oddly. "She usually ends up getting shit-faced and going home with Ibiki, actually…" he trailed off.

Iruka wished he hadn't had to deal with that image.

"Yeah," Genma agreed, apparently interpreting his expression correctly, "Her continued ability to fall into poor company astounds me," he said, yawning again.

"Are you tired?" Iruka asked politely, hoping that the change of subject, however abrupt and obvious, would steer them away from the topic of Anko's love life. Or Anko's anything, really, he thought, eyeing her again and wincing.

Genma shrugged. "Meh," he muttered, clamping his lips around the needle again. "A bit. Why? You looking for an excuse not to be the first one to leave?" he asked.

Iruka, by this stage, had, indeed, begun wishing that he hadn't originally organised this mess. What happened to his ideal, wholesome night for the hard-working and socially inept genin of Konoha?

He glanced around. Sakura was talking to Shino in a dark corner. He blinked. Well… good. Yes. Good. Not at all creepy. And Naruto was – ah, there he – oh. He was with Jiraiya, who appeared to be converting him and Kiba to the ways of evil. Iruka sighed. He would _not_ give up on that boy, no matter how hard the little blonde tried to make him. He excused himself and moved to put a stop to that.

Genma shrugged and went to find Asuma. With any luck, he'd have found a quiet corner, a bottle of sake, and a deck of cards.

--------------------------

They'd crashed to the floor in a sprawling heap as soon as they'd gotten through the door. The Uchiha complex was utterly deserted, which came as no surprise.

The tiles had been cold at first, but they'd heated up quickly, and their eyes had adjusted just as fast to the absence of light. Their skin was white like the sun had never seen it, anyway, and he knew his own eyes glowed in the dark.

Sasuke's neck was cool and soft and pale under his teeth and the shock of contrast seemed somehow poignant to him at that moment. He was skinny and lanky and the bare muscle that there actually _was_ on his body seemed ropy and ill-proportioned, fitting to his age, but there was something undeniably attractive about all of that, and he let both mind and hands wander, sure he was smiling faintly.

Sasuke made a small, tight noise in the back of his throat. "Mmkay. Clothes. Off. Now."

Neji's smile mutated into something resembling an all-out grin.

-------------------

Mwah.

**Please comment. My ego's disintegrating today. **

Not proof-read. Edits needed like WHOA. If you spot 'em, tell me.


	21. The falter, the boredom

See first chapter for disclaimer.

--------------------------------

"Ne, Hinata-chan?" Kurenai mumbled. She'd brought a flask from the party, one that she'd stolen from Anko. Hinata suspected that it was adding to her strange behaviour.

The smaller girl blinked. "Yes, Kurenai-sensei?" she responded.

"Have you ever been to my apartment?"

"Eh?" Hinata blinked. "No, of course not!" she exclaimed. She would never have snuck into her teacher's apartment without her permission! Maybe Kiba had said he had, once, but she didn't even know where it was.

"Come on, then," Kurenai said happily, twirling around like a small child. "We'll curl up by the heater and I'll make hot coca and... and we'll talk."

"Talk?" Hinata repeated, wondering if this was about her failure in recent missions. She wasn't going to be reassigned, was she? Or sent back to the academy? Intellectually, she knew it was impossible to send her back, but somehow all she could think of was the expression on her father's face.

"Don't look so scared! We'll... you know. Girl stuff. I'll paint your toenails!" Kurenai exclaimed, although she wasn't at all sure she had anything that she could possibly paint toenails with. Maybe that purple-coloured stuff she used to make her smoke-bombs?

"E-e. Of... alright." Hinata agreed hesitantly, ducking her head as Kurenai spun around and around and around.

"Great! Here we are!" She spun around again, this time with a key in her hand, and collided happily with the door, giggling. Hinata watched on with wide eyes.

Since Kurenai-sensei was a highly-trained jounin, the door swung open on the third try and they were in.

--------------------------------

Shino looked around, bored. He hadn't had anything to drink, and, although Sakura was interesting company, she'd wandered off to get something to drink and somehow started an argument with Naruto in the process. Shino wasn't sure, but it looked rather as though he'd been trying to look up her dress. This seemed particularly likely, given his cheer squad of Jiraiya and Kiba.

He wondered briefly if he should do something, but then decided against it. He was bored, but he wasn't that bored. He watched idly as a small black female made her slow, careful way across his knuckle.

Ino had wandered off, and Chouji and Shikamaru had apparently found her passed out on the steps, from which they'd chosen to leave. Kakashi was locked in a one-sided debate with Gai, who was losing. Tsunade had long since passed out, leaving Anko the gloating (partially unclothed) winner of the contest. Genma, long-suffering needle-smoking and totally unchanged, was holding her up by one arm. Iruka was rubbing his head an evidently considering the mess he'd made of the evening.

Shino was beginning to suspect that the situation would be much more entertaining if he had also imbibed of the alcohol, but he wasn't game to lose so much control and potentially loose a plague on the entire hall. Sakura was busy kicking Naruto in the ribs, so he sighed, loosened his shoulders with a tiny movement and walked stoically from the hall.

The night hadn't been a complete waste of time, given that he'd seen several _interesting_ facets of human interaction, but he was not certain that any of these qualified as "normal social interactions".

--------------------------------

Ino staggered. The heels that had made her legs look so hot earlier in the night were making it nearly impossible for her to stand now. There was glass on the ground from a shattered bottle, and ash from Asuma's cigarettes, so she wasn't about to take them off.

Shikamaru and Chouji were supporting her down the stairs – she was so lucky o have friends like these, god, she _loved_ these guys, she thought. So she told them.

"She's really, really drunk, huh, Shikamaru?"

Ino glowered. That was the last time she'd show her affection to these assholes! She was about to tell them that, too, except that things were getting swirly and nasty and she needed to concentrate on where she was walking more, because every time she set her foot down, it was like the ground was rolling under her foot, like she was walking on a boat in a storm.

"Hold on to her," the voice of her teacher said gruffly, and she felt a hand wrap around her upper arm and haul her upright, which seemed to feel awfully like falling forward to her.

"I'm fine!" she insisted.

"Of course you are," Asuma said in an understanding tone. Ino growled and slapped at his hand, dislodging Shikamaru's hand around her waist and falling on Chouji in the process.

As her chin collided with the ground, Ino felt her body becoming rebelliously leaden and her thoughts swimming away from her...

Asume sighed, dropping his smoke and crushing it swiftly underfoot. He leant down and hauled her up, tossing her over his shoulder to take her home. Shikamaru made noises about how bothersome Ino was, even unconscious, and Chouji sat up with some difficulty, swirly-eyed.

--------------------------------

Kankurou, having ditched Shikamaru and Chouji, finally spotted what he thought was his saner sibling in a large tree whose branches hung nearby the windows of Uchiha Manor. Inside, he could see the disused _genkan_, old displays and symbols of wealth arranged perfectly to gather dust. Kind of sad, really.

"I've been looking for you," Kankurou grumbled as he landed next to her lightly, giving Tenten a quick up-and-down before dismissing her. "What the hell're you doing?"

"Shut up, they'll hear you."

Kankurou glanced back into the house, blanching when he made sense of the scene. He turned a flat look on his sister. "You're out here, in a tree, in the middle of the night to spy on a couple of pretty-boys sucking face?" he asked.

He'd known that all women were essentially mad, but this... He glanced over at the other girl perched a little higher up in the tree, a glance that afforded him a very nice flash of her thigh, and raised a tattooed eyebrow. She shrugged, and then grinned, a dizzy, drunken little grin.

Ah. Drunkenness made the situation make so much more sense, he thought, rolling his eyes and slipping noiselessly from the tree to the ground. He'd go find Gaara. Surely the most disturbing thing he'd be doing was killing small children.

That, he could deal with.

--------------------------------

Alright, good afternoon, everyone. Been a while, hasn't it? )

Admittedly, this chapter was less amusing than some of the others, since I'm tired and sick (_again_) and _cold_ (Australia. It's not a very cold country in the scheme of things, but it is moving on into winter) and _bored so utterly shitless that I can't even amuse myself._

Now that I've said that, I'm relying on your lovely reviews to amuse me and your lovely flames to keep me warm. XD Not proof-read (is it ever?), not beta'd, edits probably needed like WHOA. Tell me if you find any.


	22. Progress in Leaps and Bounds

See first chapter for disclaimer.

Hi! It's been a while, although I seem to be starting every chapter with that these days. I guess I'm just not inspired to write crack quite so often. Oh, well. Enjoy as best you can, and I'll be back.

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Hinata huddled by the heater, back hard up against the wall. She licked her lips nervously. She'd never been inside her teacher's apartment before. She felt sort of as though she was doing something that she really shouldn't have been, a guilty, anxious feeling in her gut, the one that meant that her father was going to be very disappointed in her again.

Strangely, she found that she didn't mind that feeling as much as she should have.

"Here." Kurenai-sensei's eyes strange red eyes were suddenly level with hers.

Hinata blinked hazily at the mug in front of her. It was thick and black and filled with steaming liquid. Hesitantly, she took it. "…Thank you," she said quietly.

Kurenai flopped down in front of the heater with her own mug. Her back hit it with a clank and she laughed at the noise. Hinata managed a small smile in response.

"Turns out I don't have any sugar," Kurenai said, sniffing her own drink, "so it's just cocoa… mostly." She explained.

"I… I'm sure it's fine," Hinata said, wrapping her chilled hands around the mug and taking a gulp. She swallowed a moment later, eyes watering, and coughed hard as soon as she was certain she wasn't going to sputter cocoa all over Kurenai-sensei's floor.

Kurenai slapped her on the back, laughing. "Come on, Hinata-chan," she said with a grin, "It's good for you."

Hinata wheezed, finally breathing better. She looked uncertainly up at her teacher. "… okay," she said, looking back into her drink. With determined eyes, she took another gulp. The burn was less severe this time. It actually didn't taste too bad.

"How do you feel?" Kurenai asked, drinking her own.

Hinata blinked at her, that white-eyed deer-in-headlights look. "I… Like I'm doing something bad," she admitted finally.

Kurenai's smile was narrow and inviting. "Does that bother you?" she asked, leaning closer. Her eyes narrowed to slits. Hinata could see red irises and smudged, smoky eyeliner.

Through the nervous apprehension, she managed an honest smile. "Not anymore," she said.

--------------------------------

Naruto was having fun.

Sure, Sakura had just fed him his spleen, and it was still dribbling out of his mouth, but he was still having fun. The thing was, after a few (too many) drinks, he'd decided that the perverted-hermit had the right idea.

This decision may have been directly related to the amount of alcohol he'd imbibed, but that didn't really matter, because he'd decided. Jiraiya didn't seem to be particularly perturbed by this decision, so it couldn't have been _that_ bad.

That theory was probably also related to the alcohol consumption, but Naruto didn't know that. In fact, he didn't know much of anything right then, except that he was not especially fond of the taste of his own spleen.

He'd gotten a great look up Sakura's skirt though. She had nice legs. And wore lace.

Then she'd tried to kill him and run out after Shino, but he wouldn't let that get him down!

Something was licking his cheek. He thwacked at it, and it let out a canine whine.

"Don't lick that, Akamaru. You don't know where it's been!"

Kiba? Naruto squinted at him. Kiba squinted right back. Both of him. Naruto nodded emphatically. "Yeah," he agreed, pushing what he now realised was Akamaru's furry head away from his face.

Kiba stared down at him. Naruto was slumped against the table leg, smiling into the distance. There was a trace of blood trickling from his nose.

Jiraiya could be seen from his peripheral, if he'd cared to look, doing a joyful dance and mumbling about how Naruto had finally become a man. Despite his disapproval of the events leading to it, Gai-sensei could be seen eyeing the joyful dancing with longing, as though, had it been his own student and an incident less questionable in nature, he'd have happily joined in. As it was, he firmly turned his back on the display and resumed his conversation with Kakashi.

"Man… you're _wasted_," Kiba informed him.

Naruto glared up at him, although it was very hard to look intimidating when he was lying in a puddle on the floor, having just had the shit kicked out of him by a woman who weighed less than forty kilograms.

"So're you," he said.

Kiba frowned at him. "Yeah, but at least I hold my booze a helluva lot better than you do!" he crowed, then picked up Akamaru and left the building.

Naruto stared after him for a long moment.

"Naruto, are you… all right?" someone asked. He turned his head again and blinked up in a new direction.

"Iruka-sensei…" he said. "… Did he just insult me?"

Iruka sighed. He was never throwing another party again. Ever.

--------------------------------

Kankuro thought he might be scarred for life.

His little brother was not old enough to be… doing that. Or at least not where Kankuro might accidentally stumble across him.

Particularly not with someone so goddamned ugly. Really. What was so special about that Lee kid, anyway? He might have understood the blonde girl, or the one with the pink hair, but the eyebrow guy?

Was this, like… payback, for Gaara's distinct lack of eyebrows? Or was his (scary) little brother just uncontrollably attracted to copious amounts of green spandex and fuzzy leg warmers? As frightening as it was, he thought he might prefer the former option.

But those had definitely been the remnants of green spandex and yellow legwarmers strewn across the dirt. And he couldn't recall, try though he might, anybody else in Konoha who wore such an atrocious outfit.

Except for that… unique jounin.

And Kankuro wasn't even going there. It was too damaging.

But it wasn't as though he'd gotten a clear enough look to tell who the other figure had been.

And he wasn't going there.

He was going to find his nice, normal sister and listen to her make inappropriate comments about the sized of various appendages on her oblivious eye-candy again. Yes. That would be something he could deal with.

And it would not involve the terrifying idea that Gaara of the Desert was a happy, willing and very loud bottom.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he might just start walking back to Sand now.

Yes.

Sand.

Where there were no green-spandex-and-legwarmers-wearing creatures, and people behaved like normal deranged monsters.

--------------------------------

"Come on, Mitarashi," he growled, chomping aggressively down on his needle and yanking on her arm.

She stumbled on her front steps and howled a few curses at him. She was quite creative about it, really, but her words were so slurred that the only words he caught were "fucker" and "yo mamma". He was not particularly impressed.

She made it up the stairs, and couldn't remember where she'd put her keys, forcing him to riffle through her clothing until he found them. At any other point, she might have been a pain in the arse about the general riffling through her clothing and assorted skimpy pieces of fishnet, but she just snorted inelegantly when he hit a ticklish spot and stared at something over his shoulder.

Genma unlocked her door and shoved her inside. With a lopsided grin, she tugged him after her, kicked off her boots and slammed the door behind them with an odd, drunken sort of grace.

Bemused, he followed her and leaned back on the door.

"C'mon, she mumbled, pushing up against him with a sloppy kiss. She grabbed his collar and dragged him in the general direction of the corridor, steadier on bare feet but inches shorter than him again.

The door banged open and he was shoved down onto the unmade bed. Anko laughed, a raucous, hearty kind of noise, and tugged off her top, which had been mostly fishnet and not very modest anyway.

She bounced on the balls of her feet in the general direction of the bed. Genma caught her around the waist and directed her back when she looked like careening into a wall, spilling her on top of him.

She laughed again, flashed her lopsided smile and tugged the needle from between his lips.

Then she let out one more drunken laugh and passed out.

Genma looked down at her, scowling. He wondered, briefly, if it would be worth it to continue, unconscious or not. But he valued his limbs, so he sighed, searched again for his needle, jammed it between his lips and left, tossing her top over her back as he shut the door.

Then he left.

--------------------------------

I tried, I did, but I couldn't seem to make much of it funny. It's supposed to be, but I re-read it and didn't even crack a smile. But, next chapter promises More Sakura and Shino, and potentially some interesting Kakashi and Gai moments. nn

As usual, I couldn't be bothered looking too hard for errors, so if you find an edit, tell me. I don't know if I'll take the time out to actually correct them, since that's _so_ troublesome, but I'd like to know about them all the same! nn

Reviews welcome, flames less welcome but accepted nonetheless.

See you next time!


	23. Slip

See first chapter for disclaimer.

**_NOTE: if you're not into yuri, or if the whole underage thing upsets you, you should probably skip the… fifth… scene in this chapter. Just a warning – your first, last and only!_**

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"...I can't believe he just... passed out." Tenten said incredulously.

Temari was also glowering at the figures that could be seen through the faint opening of a window onto the disused Uchiha genkan.

One Uchiha Sasuke was experimentally prodding at the slumped form of Hyuuga Neji, who had indeed passed out atop him.

Prod.

Prod.

"That's..."

"...kind of pathetic, really," Temari finished sadly. "And we were just getting to the good bit, too."

"Which good bit?" Tenten asked, still frowning at her team mate. Maybe someone had put something extra in his already-spiked drink? It didn't seem like him...

"_Their_ good bits," she snapped. "Come on. This is boring." She swayed through the trees, not nearly as silent as she usually was.

Tenten followed - quieter, but then, she was forest born and raised - without really considering why she'd been invited. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"I kind of want to find Gaara. I'm not sure that alcohol would be... good for him," Temari said delicately.

Tenten swallowed. "You know, maybe I should make sure Neji's okay," she temporised, slowing down. "You know. Just in case -"

"Coward."

"HEY!" Tenten snapped, speeding up to catch up. "I _am not_. I just don't really want to see your brother when he's _drunk_ and... and... _demonic_," she growled. "Besides," she said after a second, "how'd you even know where he is?"

Temari shrugged. "He's not hard to sense if you're looking for him. His chakra's pretty massive."

They stumbled onwards in a vaguely companionable silence, perhaps because they had nothing else to share, or perhaps because drunken ataxia had taken hold and they were trying to discretely find their balance in the trees without admitting that it was taking a lot more effort than it should have.

Tenten stopped dead when they came across a very familiar leg warmer. "Um..." she stared at it on the ground for a moment, hoping it was a hallucination. She determined to stop believing in it, but it didn't go away.

Temari followed her gaze. "Funny," she said. "You'd think we would have heard them if he'd been killing him," she considered. "I mean, your... creature," she said with a vaguely perturbed gesture towards the leg warmer in question, "isn't _that_ easy to take down, right?"

Tenten scowled. "No," she growled, "he's not. And I think you'll find he's FINE, because your pet psychopath wouldn't be able to beat him twice anyway," she said firmly.

Temari disregarded the psychopath comment in favour of making a derisive noise. "We'll see," she said, and they pretended that they hadn't sobered up and spead up when they continued onwards.

Needless to say, they did not expect to find Rock Lee and Gaara of the Desert curled up under a large tree and very much naked. Lee was asleep - droolingly so - but Gaara opened one pale eye as they approached. His warning glare would have stopped a tiger in its tracks, but if that didn't get the message across, the low growl that trickled from his throat certainly did.

"We'll... just be going, then," Temari said in a thin voice. She didn't move.

Tenten, who knew shock this severe could be very dangerous if left unattended for too long, took her gently by the arm and, after depositing Lee's leg warmer on the ground at her feet, led the blonde away.

She made soothing noises to her, comforting platitudes spilling from her lips - all lies, really, because she'd seen the onset of PTSD before, and this was definitely it - and tugged her away from the scene.

--------------------------------

Gaara, having ascertained that the threat had removed itself, settled his head back on Lee's shoulder and resumed purring.

--------------------------------

"I – Iruka-sensei?" Naruto asked, squinting at the presence above him.

His ex-teacher did not look pleased. "Come on," he growled. "I'm taking you home. And then _Jiraiya-sama_ and I are going to have a long talk."

"…The pervert-hermit's in trouble?" Naruto wondered, letting the older man haul him up by an arm. The room swam alarmingly at that, making him pitch forward and blink.

"Yes," Iruka said tersely. "The pervert-hermit's _definitely_ in trouble."

"…cool." Naruto looked around. There was a blonde blur – couldn't be Ino, it was too tall, so it had to be Tsunade – with Jiraiya, and lots of yelling. Most of the genin seemed to have cleared out – or been cleared out – of the area, although Kiba and Akamaru were just making it out of the entranceway, clinging to one of the doors. The dog's loud barking made him cringe.

A thought occurred to him. That moment should probably have been made into a national holiday.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei… where's Kakashi-sensei?"

Iruka sighed, tugging him closer to his side to support him better. "I think he and Gai-san went off to have some kind of challenge again," he said.

"Oh. And Sakura-chan?"

Iruka looked off to the left somewhere. Naruto followed his gaze and squinted until he realised that there was something pink and green laying on the –

"RAAAGH!!! SAKURA-CHAN'S **_DEAD_**!" he flailed, almost knocking Iruka over in the process.

He careened over to her and commenced feeling for a pulse, which was a nice thought but, since he was kind of seeing double and might have accidentally touched something he _Was Not Allowed To Touch On Pain Of Screaming Death_, only got him beaten over the head by Iruka when he caught up.

His teacher shouldered the comatose girl and dragged Naruto along by his ear, muttering darkly about _perverted teachers_ and _bad habits _and _no manners_ and _impressionable adolescents_.

--------------------------------

Shino arrived back at the ancestral Aburame digs and entered. His father glanced at him as he came through the doorway from where he was meditating.

"Did you learn anything?" he queried in his soft, toneless voice.

Shino considered this for a moment. "Yes." He responded.

His father didn't move. "Good."

Shino inclined his head a few millimetres. The homecoming questions finished with, the Aburame household dissolved back into its habitual silence.

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"Are you sure this is alright, Kurenai-sensei?" Hinata asked shyly, blushing. Her eyes were downcast, hands fisted in the partially-discarded black dress that was barely hanging on to her thighs. Her knuckles had gone white, her breathing was short and unsteady.

Her teacher had settled back on her elbows, half-lidded eyes examining her lazily. "Sure it is," she said, uncurling the fingers of Hinata's left hand and coaxing her closer.

Hinata took a step and turned her face away when Kurenai-sensei's lips slid over the pulse point in her neck. She was pretty sure this was not behaviour that her father would approve of. Oddly, the thought felt good – good, like the other woman's hot breath ghosting down collarbone and lower, across her chest.

She swallowed nervously. Her skin felt very alive. She bit her lip when the bra strap slid across her shoulder.

The soft scrape of teeth against a cloth-covered nipple made her breath catch in her throat and things low in her stomach curl up tightly. Anticipation and anxiety made her lick her lips and exhale shakily.

With one last tug, the dress gave up and slid with a silky sound down her thighs and calves, landing in a pool around her ankles. 

--------------------------------

And that is all for this instalment. I think it was Shi Rurouni who said, "_You should have Temari or someone walk in on Lee and Gaara_", so that short scene was totally SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT.

If you liked it, however, I am happy to take all credit. :P

Anyway. Any comments? **I'm particularly interested in the last scene, with Kurenai and Hinata, for those of you that read it.** It might not be your thing as a pairing, but I hardly ever write femslash, because I'm worried about sounding like a thirteen year old boy going, "Huh huh, boobs!" – if that makes any sense at all. So, you know, if you have any thoughts on the writing of that scene particularly, I'd love you forever for some feedback. XD

That is all.

Yasi


	24. All Dressed Down

See first chapter for disclaimer.

Chapter Twenty Four: In which Sasuke comes to, Lee attempts to procure a marriage, and Neji cannot find his shirt

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Lee came to in the wee hours of the morning. He felt sore, in a good, stretchy sort of way. His eyelids fluttered open to the still, pre-dawn air, and he stretched like a cat, idly wondering which vigorous training he'd knocked himself out with this time – he never _could_ remember what had happened just before he passed out from exhaustion – but it didn't feel quite the same. In fact, it felt an awful lot as though he'd simply had a very long nap.

He squinted into the depths of the forest and saw a single legwarmer.

This was when he realized that he was naked. And, although he'd sort of known it in the back of his mind, where all ninja kept their awareness of such things, he also realized that Gaara's warm skin was pressed between him and the trunk of the tree.

His first thought was to wonder what sort of enlightening, ritualistic training they'd been engaged in that had driven them both to such heights of exhaustion, but then he remembered.

"Gaara, my love –" he began, with hearts in his eyes – although perhaps it may have been more accurate to say that his eyes ­­_were _hearts.

"No more talking," Gaara growled. "You slept for too long."

Lee blinked. "I did?"

"Yes. Get dressed."

Lee did as he was told. Gaara, already dressed, although slightly disheveled, watched him with unstable green eyes. He could feel them rolling over his skin, down the well-muscled curves of his calves, the bends of his elbows. He swallowed. "Gaara –"

"Leave."

Lee blinked. "I – what?"

"Leave." Gaara repeated with unusual patience. "Now," he added when he realized that Lee wasn't moving.

Lee wasn't very good at taking hints. In fact, he wasn't very good at taking outright instructions. He frowned in confusion. "But, Gaara! Now that our youthful love has bloomed, I –"

Gaara was suddenly very close, his hot breath ghosting along Lee's collarbone. Even insects have some self-preserving instincts, but Lee kept talking, "believe it would be for the best for both of us if we were to discuss our intentions of matrimonial –"

"I'm not marrying you," Gaara growled. "You need to leave now." He paused. "Come back later. I find you… amusing," he rolled the word around on his tongue as though testing out its taste. "So you'll be staying until I get bored, or you die. Whichever comes first." There was a sharp little piece of Shuukaku peeking out from behind his glassy eyes.

Lee doubted he'd die, and he knew that his beloved would _never_ grow weary of him, despite what his prickly exterior and tormented mind dictated he should say, but there was one thing that he felt he really had to object to immediately – just to set some ground rules.

"I'm not leaving," Lee said firmly.

--------------------------------

Sasuke groaned through his hangover. He didn't make pained noises in public or around his team, aside from the occasional manly grunt, but he recognized through his cringing eyes the roof of his own home, and didn't bother holding back. His head _hurt_.

He didn't even want to think about moving. It was strange, he considered hazily. His metabolism dealt with the alcohol quickly enough that it was difficult to become really inebriated, but the hangover didn't seem to be being chased off by the same token. He closed his eyes again and debated just not moving, but he had realized that he was on the floor – and thus must have actually passed out, at some point, which meant he'd been through a _lot_ of… whatever it had been.

His bladder was telling him the same thing.

So. Did he get up, and throw up on himself, or lay there and piss himself? Oh, the choices.

Even in his own home, it would damage his pride to end up lying in a puddle of his own urine – more than it would to throw up on his own shoes. After all, throwing up suggested that one was struggling through illness, or had been training too much, or something else that wasn't nearly as shameful as wetting himself because he was too scared to feel the remnants of his brain sloshing through his skull.

With a masculine grunt, Sasuke rolled over and staggered to his feet, swallowing against the bile in his throat, and very nearly crawled into the bathroom.

When he stumbled back out, Hyuuga Neji was leaning against the wall opposite the door. Wet from a recent shower, shirtless with water dripping slowly from his hair down over his collarbone, trailing along his stomach and further down, where any curious eyes would have noticed that his pants weren't buttoned all the way…

"Uchiha," he said again, and Sasuke finally glanced up to his impassive face. "Do you have any idea what happened to my shirt?" he asked neutrally.

Sasuke blinked once. He held up a hand to forestall further speech, turned on his heel and closed the door again before emptying his stomach into the toilet bowl.

Neji, expressionless and patient, waited for him to open the door again, before repeating his question in exactly the same tone.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sasuke demanded by way of response.

"I came home with you. I was drunk. We drank more. Things went… downhill," Neji recounted flatly.

In a dim recess of his battered psyche, Sauske was glad he'd chosen to phrase it so diplomatically. He sounded almost bored. Sasuke wondered how he was being so very calm about this. If it had been anybody else, Sasuke might have been shoving a kunai up their spine at that moment, but there were several factors at work here that prevented this course of action:

Firstly, he was not sure if he could move fast enough to catch Neji without his head rolling off his shoulders.

Next, he was fairly certain that Neji had not been trying to seduce him, but had been an accidental casualty of the spiked punch – he remembered _that_ far, at least – and was not any more pleased than Sasuke was by this turn of events.

Finally, Neji was _not_ likely to be discussing this with his closest girlfriend in fifteen minutes, giving a blow-by-blow account with every possible detail, punctuated by high-pitched giggles.

Sasuke continued staring at a water droplet meander down Neji's hipbone. It helped that he was attractive. For a moment, he stood back and wondered, "God, what was IN that punch?"

"Rum, possibly," Neji considered. "Too potent to be rice wine," he added with a shrug when Sasuke gave him a very confused scowl. "What now?"

"What do you mean, what now?" Sasuke growled. "Find your shirt and get the hell out of my house! And make sure nobody sees you!"

Neji blinked once, slowly, "Tenten was following us," he said. "So I've already been seen."

Sasuke groaned, forget the not-showing-pain-in-public rule. "Then just shut up and get in here," he snapped back, reaching out to snatch Neji's hair and tug him into the room.

The door slammed closed after them with a very final bang.

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Year twelve finals… wish me luck, and hope you don't see another chapter for a while, because that would mean procrastination.


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